THE ABILITY OF THE BOTTLED WATER SECTOR TO MEET THE NEEDS OF CONSUMERS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Bottled water sector in B&H becomes more significant economically with media pressure and expectations. This paper aims to determine factors important for the consumers while choosing bottled water products and in that way try to, by comparing the results to the sectors abilities, determine sector’s ability to meet the consumer’s needs. Small research among (97) respondents was carried out, and the results indicate that the sector is unable to meet the needs of the customers, since the trade balance is negative and domestic market share low. Customer profile suggests almost only young consumers, which indicates that for the stronger results further research is needed

Rapid Evidence Assessment Protocol for the Meta-Analysis of Initiatives, Interventions and Programmes That Target Rural NEETs

The acronym NEET refers to youths aged between 15 and 34 years old who are excluded from employment, education or training. However, historically, the NEET demographic has been depicted as a largely homogenous group. Against this backdrop and given the dependency of rural economies on agricultural practices for survival, such practices have been in decline for a number of years, seriously threatening rural communities’ sustainability. While these rural NEETs can present as registered unemployed and also within the reporting statistics of various different state-funded initiatives, interventions and programmes, in the case of Rural NEETs, there is a dearth of reporting categories that highlight the specificity of this group resulting in their presence being largely overlooked within official dissemination. In order to advance this emergent field of research, presented here is a Rapid Evidence Assessment protocol that will aid future work of the authors and for others to adapt and/or adopt

Strengthening the levels of food companies' market orientation - the road towards strengthening the competitiveness of agribusiness in Bosnia and Herzegovina

High level of trade deficit indicates low competitiveness in B&H agribusiness, which brings the question whether its low competitiveness is mirroring its low market orientation, i.e. capability to apply integrated business philosophy which ensures adequate competitive advantages and sustains development of companies. To answer that, a survey was conducted through a MKTOR scale for measuring market orientation, on fifty food companies in the period May – December 2013. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS, and it included reliability test, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, along with the tests of statistical significance and descriptive statistics. B&H food companies are only partly market-oriented, 3.430 (max 5.0), with Crombach’s Alpha of 0.943. Factor analysis revealed three market orientation factors: intelligence generation (0.393), intelligence dissemination (0.503) and responsiveness (0.522). Level of market orientation in small (3.511) and large (3.364) was statistically different, meaning that the smaller companies are less capable of understanding the market. Also, small and big companies have significantly different performances on the basis of all three market orientation factors. However, we may say that for both types of companies, intelligence generation and intelligence dissemination are a weak link, whereas responsiveness is better than total average. Results show that food companies in B&H have low ability of collecting key information about the market. Furthermore, omissions in internal organization and lack of knowledge about marketing are barrier to use efficiently the collected, often disorganized data on market necessities. Therefore existing, collected data are not utilized to enhance creative communication and building of added value that will make difference on market place and enable B&H food companies to develop sustainable competitive advantages

How to Foster Rural Sustainability through Farming Workforce Rejuvenation? Looking into Involuntary Newcomers’ Spatial (Im)mobilities

This conceptual paper aims to expand the notion of “farming newcomers” in Europe by also including those that we label “involuntary newcomers”, who correspond to the workforce coming unwillingly to farming for reasons associated with spatial (im)mobilities. We fully develop our aim in four steps. Firstly, we present an integrative literature review which describes how the interplay between the key concepts of the sustainable farming framework (i.e., sustained development, networked rural development, and spatial (im)mobilities) tailor the newcomers’ arrival to the farming sector. Secondly, we define involuntary newcomers, describe their profiles and list the barriers to their engagement with sustainable farming. Thirdly, we advance some implications and limitations of our work for mobility research agendas. Fourthly, we conclude with an overview of the main inputs provided by our paper. We contribute to the literature by showing that: (a) newcomers must be defined beyond land ownership; (b) involuntary newcomers are very diverse, due to trends in spatial (im)mobilities; and (c) there is a high risk of the sustainable farming framework failing to meet its ambitions if it continues to ignore involuntary newcomers (and the barriers they encounter) in sustainable forms of agriculture

Confronting Views of Companies and Authorities on Food Safety Issues—A Cross-Country Survey

This study investigated food safety issues as perceived by food companies and food safety authorities in six countries in Europe and Central Asia. A total of 66 companies and 16 authorities participated in the survey. The results provide important insights related to what the main food safety priorities are, how they are addressed in the countries that participated in the survey, and what the role of the main stakeholders is in the food value chain. Almost 50% of food companies identified ‘food fraud’ as the most influential food safety attribute. One-third of food safety authorities recognized ‘food safety management system’ as the most influential food safety attribute. Principal component analysis separated food safety statements into two dimensions named ‘food safety hazards and risks’ and ‘food safety system’. Although there are slight differences in food safety statements between the two stakeholders, i.e., food companies and food safety authorities, it is the country of origin that plays a more important role in understanding their views. Food companies will need to implement a systemic approach and transform the entire food value chain continuum while considering new food safety challenges. It is expected that food safety authorities will have to play a more proactive role in the future

Consumer attitudes and perceptions towards chilled ready-to-eat foods: a multi-national study

Understanding consumers’ behavior and their handling of high-risk foods at home is essential for reducing the number of foodborne illnesses. This study shows the results of a cross-national analysis of consumers’ perception from nine countries, and the identification of customers’ clusters and its characteristics in order to understand customers’ behavior, and to build safe chilled ready-to-eat (RTE) foods prevention strategies. The cluster analysis resulted in two clusters: (1) “Precautious consumers” characterized by the orientation towards pre-packed RTE foods, with consumers mainly coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, India, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. Their attitudes and self-reported practices may be categorized as less risky in terms of food-borne illnesses connected with the consumption of RTE foods; (2) “Unconcerned consumers” preferred cutting and slicing RTE foods freshly at the point of purchase, usually sold at the delicatessen department in a supermarket or at open markets. Those consumers mostly came from Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia and their attitudes and self-reported practices were riskier. These results allow a better understating of what characterizes consumers of RTE foods in different countries. © 2023, Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (BVL)