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Abstract
This paper outlines how a team work approach, recently suggested in institutional economics to overcome the
problem of externalities, can be used to promote better food quality. Cost sharing as “team work” is considered
a novel institution to improve food quality by giving incentives to overcome the public good character of quality.
We translate the approach from negative to positive externalities. Hereby: (1) We make a reference to the
current state of the discussion on how food quality depends on efforts of a food industry to get a better image
and discuss how much need there is to improve quality. (2) An outline of a mathematical approach of a “team
work” is presented in the provision of quality as a positive externality and (3) the approach is adapted to a likely
team building effort in a food industry. Finally some remarks are made how to stimulate a process of team
building and the role of a government is addressed. At the core of the paper we see the argument that free
riding on quality can be avoided if collective actions or team building processes occur in a community. A team is
modeled as partnership of producers in which costs for quality improvement are shared.