Food System Dynamics (E-Journals)
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Production, Consumption and the Actor's Landscape in the Argentinean Organic Agricultural and Food Sector
Get PDFArgentina substantially contributes to the global organic agriculture and food sector due to its large areas of organically managed agricultural land. However, most of the organic production is intended for export. Overall, food supply for the domestic organic market is hardly tapped. Based on this, we investigate the current importance of organic agriculture and food production as well as consumption attitudes and behavior within the country. The novelty of the study also lies in the observation, documentation and analysis of latest stakeholder‐driven developments towards organic agriculture and food. Furthermore, the publication allows the Argentinean organic market to be significantly more visible for the international audience
Succession in Horticultural Family Businesses
Get PDFSuccession is a persistent topic in recent family business research and garners attention from a wide range of research areas. Strategic and principal‐agent approaches discuss the subject from an organizational point of view; gender research takes a sociological viewpoint. The present study assesses the perspectives of those involved in the succession process through a qualitative research approach. Based on in‐depth interviews conducted in German horticultural businesses, a comparative analysis serves as the starting point for an inquiry of internal succession processes. With transferability limited to similar cases, results show a range of important factors, affecting the generation‐spanning succession process
Digitalization and Work Organization in New Urban Food Delivery Systems
Get PDFFood distribution in general and within urban areas in particular requires a state-of-the-art logistics system. One important aspect is the level of centralization, which has shifting optima owing to emerging digitalization and peer-to-peer concepts. This study offers insights regarding the digitalization effects for innovative food logistics solutions. Findings are based on two case studies from (1) new urban distribution systems (Foodora, Lieferando, and Deliveroo) and (2) Foodsharing in Germany. Results focus on the digitalized fast and short-term coordination between suppliers, transporters, and customers, and reveal interesting influences on work organization and management of workers in food distribution
Consciously Pursued Joint Action: Agricultural and Food Value Chains as Clubs
Get PDFCertain members of a population consciously and deliberately decide to take joint action to provide particular types of goods or services that are at least partly excludable and at least partly congestible because it is too costly to provide such goods individually. These goods are called club goods or collective goods. We first define some key concepts in club theory and public choice. This includes the prospects for determining the optimal level of membership of a club, how to determine the optimal level and range of provision of services by a club, and consideration of the dynamics of club membership. Then we examine the ways in which club theory can help provide an alternative approach to recognising and overcoming market failure in agricultural and food value chains. We note that useful insights can be gained by considering value chains as ‘latent clubs’. That is, they are systems that exist which are either inactive or have not been fully developed, but which have the potential for improvement through collective action. If value chain members do exploit an opportunity to reap the rewards of collective action, then forming a club that comprises the whole chain or a subset of chain members offers an efficient organisation design to do so. We find that all of the calculus that has been identified for clubs can be applied to agricultural and food value chains. However, there are two particular issues that require further consideration. One is the nature of risk in agricultural value chains, and how it is related to member preferences, and the other is the form of collective action to be taken by agricultural value chains in the future
Semantic Interoperability for Data Analysis in the Food Supply Chain
Get PDFFood supply chains consist of many links and operate on a global scale with many stakeholders involved from farm to fork. Each stakeholder maintains data about food products that they handle, but this data is not transparently available to all stakeholders in the chain and trust in data sharing is low. In addition, there are various other data sources that contain interesting data for stakeholders in the food chain, such as import/export transactions, production (forecast) data, parcel crop information, local weather predictions and social media streams. To improve their production, growers and traders are very interested in trends in the market and activities in supply and demand. To make all stakeholders in the food chain benefit from these data sources and to share data more transparently, the Dutch horticulture and food domain is developing the HortiCube platform via which various data sources are made accessible to application developers using a secure, linked data application interface. This paper describes the design and engineering of the semantic approach to enable interoperability between data sources. This includes (1) a high-level design of the HortiCube, (2) the metadata ontology used for describing the contents of the data sources in the HortiCube, (3) the common horticulture model used to achieve semantic alignment between data sources in the HortiCube, (4) a test application for a specific product case and (5) a discussion of our results and future work on this topic. The main contribution of our research is the generic solution and ontology design to the semantic challenges that arise when different data sources are combined to answer analysis questions for the user
Information Sharing Strategies in Whitefish Supply Chains in Norway vs. Iceland: Impact on Supply Chain Decision Making
Get PDFInformation sharing is one of the main supply chain strategies for reducing uncertainty and is vital for supply chain efficiency. For decades, whitefish industries in Iceland and Norway have produced similar products and have exported to the same global markets. However, the differences in the supply chain integration in the two countries affects the information sharing between the fishing vessels and processors that in turn has an impact on supply chain decision making. In this paper, the information sharing practices in the whitefish supply chains in Norway and Iceland are compared. Vertical integration in the Icelandic industry enables information sharing between the fishing vessels and processors which is not the case in Norway. However, Iceland is still not taking full advantage of the available information. The use of the available information in supply chain planning, specifically production planning is discussed and suggestion for improved exchange and use of information is provided
Intention to Purchase Sustainable Wood Products: An Empirical Analysis of the Determinants
Get PDFAlthough Forest Principles promoting responsible forest management were formally adopted in 1992, the sustainability of forests is still undermined by harmful practices. In this regard, voluntary forest certification may represent an effective way to lessen the negative impacts of timber and forestry products upon the environment and upon the living conditions of local populations. This work aims to investigate the role of socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge of the forestry certification schemes and attitudinal factors on the purchasing intention of certified wood-derived products in Italy. A convenience sample of 371 consumers were interviewed through an online–administered questionnaire, and data collected were analysed by means of an ordered probit model. The results show that income and age, together with knowledge of the main certification labels and the attitudes towards certifications, have a positive and statistically significant effect on intentions to purchase certified wood productsKeywords
Strategies of Diversification and Brand Extension in SME Food Companies: Which Factors Might Affect the Impact of Consumers’ Preferences
Get PDFThe purpose of the research is to evaluate the brand extension strategy of SMEs food companies, through the analysis of the consumers' response. The research analysed the case study of a food processing cooperative, “Gruppo Grifo Agroalimentare”, which diversified its production through the acquisition of new SMEs companies. Through an hypothetical brand extension of the products, the goal is to study which factors would affect the acceptance and the purchasing of the extension. The results drive allow the SMEs food companies to know the needs of new consumers and to be able to meet these needs, both in terms of distribution and in terms of offer
On Consumers' Acceptance of Nanotechnologies: An Italian Case Study
Get PDFNanotechnology represents a new frontier in food science with a great potential for many food sectors. Several studies have examined public’s benefits and risks perception of nanotechnology, but the literature on the factors influencing the public’s attitudes toward nanotechnology is rather limited. We investigate the willingness to buy for nanotechnology foods, and the role of risks and benefits perceptions. We use a structured questionnaire was submitted to consumers and Principal Component Analysis, followed by Structural Equation Model, were performed. We estimate the consumer willing to buy nanotechnology food for four nanotechnology applications,and conclude on a positive role of trust in institutions on willingness to buy food with nanotech applications, and on the (relatively lower) importance on consumers' attitudes toward health and innovations. Policy implications are also provided
Youths’ Preferences for Milk Products at School: How Product Attributes and Perceived Body Image Affect Choices
Get PDFSnacks and lunches offered at school can decisively influence children’s dietary habits.In order to counteract the current trends of increasing obesity in children, children’s preferences for foods with lower calorie content are becoming increasingly important. Based on the outcomes of an online survey with a choice experiment, we estimated the probability that young people benefit from different milk products as well as varying sugar and fat contents. The results suggest inter alia that young people who consider themselves to be overweight are more likely to choose products with reduced sugar and/or fat contents