Designer Grapes: The Socio-Technical Construction of the Seedless Table Grapes. A Case Study of Quality Control Carlos de Castro* and Crist obal Torres-Albero Abstract This article focuses on agro-food production in Murcia, Spain, and analyses the socio- technical production processes of the seedless table grape. In the agro-food industry, a focus on quality has driven an unstoppable process of bio-technological innovation, which is also evident in the object of this study. Before these technological innovations, taste, colour and calibre as specific qualities of the grape were not considered a determi- nable characteristic. They had only emerged in the context of certain productive, techno- logical and institutional conditions of possibility and the establishment of particular relationships between the agents implicated in its cultivation. By using Callon  s contribu- tion to Actor Network Theory, the article examines how the different qualities of the seedless table grape are constructed through quality control procedures that try to stabi- lise the relationship between human (labour) and non-human (technology, insects, fungi, water, sun) actors. Introduction T he agricultural industry has undergone an enormous transformation over the last few decades. The globalisation of the agro-food system has given rise to the emergence of new intensive agricultural enclaves on every continent. The expansion of the agricultural industry in these geographic regions is closely linked to a new international division of work within the framework of the restructuring of the global economy. The result of this reconfiguration is the development of a global system of fresh fruit and vegetable production/consumption in which numerous countries par- ticipate across various continents. In this system, developed countries are the princi- pal consumers and under-developed countries the main producers (Busch and Bain 2004; Wolf and Bonanno 2014; McMichael 2009). This division is generally V C 2017 The Authors. Sociologia Ruralis V C 2017 European Society for Rural Sociology. Sociologia Ruralis, Vol 58, Number 2, April 2018 DOI: 10.1111/soru.12186