Structure, conduct and performance of the Malaysian meat and meat preparation industry

Higher concentration tends to be inefficient in the allocation of resources especially in price setting and probable collusion among larger firms. One of the most influential approaches among various theories of industrial organisation is the Structure-Conduct-Performance (S-C-P) model, which highlights the competitive conditions of an industry by examining the structure of the industry in relation to behaviour (conduct) and performance of companies. Thus, the objective of the study is to investigate the level of concentration and industry performance of selected meat and meat preparation manufacturing sub-sectors in Malaysia and to examine the relationship between market structure, conduct and performance of the industry. Secondary data were collected from selected meat manufacturing firms registered under the CCM. Results indicate that the meat processing industry tended to have a moderate concentration with monopolistic market structure prevailing throughout the study period, where more than 60% of the industry market share is being controlled by four firms. Results from the TSLS regression technique indicate that market structure provides a weak effect on advertising. This indicates that the lower the concentration ratio of the industry, the higher the expenditure spent on advertising in order to attract customers to buy products. Consequently, increases in advertising expenses have a positive effect on a firm's profit. Thus, there is a direct relationship between market structure, conduct and performance with positive and significant feedback effect among the variables; however, the magnitude of the feedback varies

Consumer Acceptance and Willingness to Pay for Prebiotic Kuini Juice in Malaysia

Changing consumers' lifestyles and food consumption patterns provide an excellent opportunity to develop the prebiotics market in Malaysia. Therefore, Malaysia is trying to improve products based on local ingredients such as kuini juice developed by the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI). The high fibre content found in kuini makes it suitable to be used as one of the essential ingredients in prebiotic drinks.  This research attempted to analyse consumer acceptance and willingness to pay for prebiotic kuini juice.  A survey was conducted in Peninsular Malaysia, where 400 respondents were interviewed using a structured questionnaire.  Exploratory factor analysis, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity were utilised for objective analysis 1, while the Contingent Valuation Method was utilised for objective analysis 2.  The result showed that 73% of respondents had taken prebiotic juice in the past. The tendency to choose prebiotic kuini juice by MARDI was 52% compared to existing products in the market. Significant findings determined consumers' preference factors, including product marketing and promotion, which influenced the purchasing of prebiotic kuini juice. The willingness to pay by respondents was lower at RM4.10/300ml bottle than the actual price bid at RM5.70/300ml bottle. As consumer awareness of health increases, it was an opportunity for the health food industry to expand the functional food market. However, some improvements should be adjusted to ensure prebiotic kuini juice can compete with other similar products in the market. Government support is needed to encourage indigenous fruits cultivation and to produce value-added products

Consumer Acceptance of Fermented Drinks in Malaysia

Fermented beverages have become a powerful player in the global beverage sector because of the increased demand for health products and their nutritional benefits to societies. This study aimed to identify consumer acceptance and willingness to pay for fermented drinks developed by MARDI. It also will evaluate the market potential of products among industry players. In this study, the data was collected using structured questionnaire and face-to-face interviews focused on the population in Peninsular Malaysia. The population's selection by stratified random sampling technique and the major survey locations included mall and hypermarket. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to discover the underlying structure of observed variables. A total of 400 respondents had participated in the study. A field survey conducted showed that 54% of respondents knew about functional foods and 55% of these are aware of functional foods based on fruits were in the market. The survey found that 30% of respondents had taken fermented drinks before, while the rest had never known this drink. Age and income have a significant influence on consumers' willingness to pay fermented drinks at a reasonable price if this product is available in the Malaysian market. Government support is needed to encourage the cultivation of indigenous fruit in Malaysia. It can be done through the provision of seed subsidies and financial resources to farmers in expanding and increasing the supply of these raw materials for the production of value-added products

Satisfaction and intention of food-based Mardi entrepreneurs towards Mardi’s consultancy and advisory services

The Malaysian government has emphasised on the importance of SMEs in enhancing the dynamism and competitiveness of the manufacturing sector. Considerable attention has been given to the provision of industrial infrastructure and amenities to facilitate the expansion of SMEs activities. Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) is one of the agencies under the Ministry of Agriculture that is involved in giving services to entrepreneurs development. The services rendered to MARDI’s entrepreneurs was in the form of soft technology such as advisory and consultation services. To date, entrepreneurs have successfully brought numerous products to the export market through MARDI’s services rendered in the form of consultation and advisory on soft technology. A study was undertaken to investigate service quality satisfaction among SME’s entrepreneurs in utilizing the consultancy and advisory services rendered and intention to continuously use services form MARDI. The study also want to identify service quality dimensions of entrepreneur’s satisfaction as well as to examine the disparity between expectation and actual service quality as perceived and experienced. The sampling frame of this study was MARDI’s entrepreneurs. The respondents were selected by simple random sampling technique to ensure that every component of the population received equal chance of being part of the selected sample. The sampling technique, the most straight forward method of probability sampling, allowed sampling error to be calculated and reduced selection bias. Sample size was determined based on 95% confidence level and 5% confidence interval. Questionnaire was developed as an instrument of the study consisting of questions on service quality model. A multi-dimensional research instrument, Service Quality Model (SERVQUAL Model) was used to capture entrepreneurs’ satisfaction, intention, expectations and perceptions along five dimensions representing service quality. Since MARDI’s core business is in research and development (R&D), technology was added as an additional dimension. GAP analysis was used to measure the differences between entrepreneurs’ expectation and perception performances either potential or desired. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to analyze data. From the model, six dimensions directly contributed to satisfaction. Four dimensions were statistically significant: reliability, responsiveness, assurance and technology, affecting satisfaction of entrepreneurs to continuously use services from MARDI. Tangibility and empathy dimensions were not significant. The study revealed that all dimensions in perceptions exceeded expectation except for responsiveness and technology. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) revealed that the variables used fit the model at 0.001 significance. Reliability test found that the variables used fit the SEM where the entire factor loading was more than 0.6. The model showed an agreeable χ2/df with index of 1.721. Fit indices of CFI = 0.942 and TLI = 0.935 achieved higher than the threshold indicating that the structural model falls within the agreeable range. Considering the entire fit indices, it is concluded that the data fit the model satisfactorily. Tangibility was significantly not related to satisfaction (β: 0.065, p = 0.318). However, reliability and responsiveness showed that magnitude of the relationship with satisfaction was significant with value of (β: 0.496, p < 0.001) and (β: 0.523, p < 0.001) respectively. The relationships between empathy with satisfaction were not significant (β: 0.055, p = 0.425) while the relationships between assurance and technology to satisfaction were found to be significant (β: 0.213, p < 0.001) and (β: 0.654, p < 0.001) respectively. There was similar occurrence in the relationship between satisfaction and intention of the entrepreneurs where the magnitude of the relationships between satisfaction to intention was strongly supported by a significant relationship (β: 0.600, p < 0.001). The study proposes improvement on MARDI’s services to help MARDI entrepreneur’s to grow their business thus improve the productivity of food products in Malaysia

The impact of external stakeholders pressures on the intention to adopt environmental management practices and the moderating effects of firm size

SMEs in the food manufacturing sector represent a considerable proportion of mainstream businesses in Malaysia. The changes in the lifestyles of Malaysians have led to increased demand for convenience and processed foods, which has led to a growing number of food manufacturing establishments in Malaysia. Nevertheless, the expansion in the food manufacturing sector is followed by a rise in environmental issues. Therefore, to mitigate the impact of food manufacturing activities on the environment, one of the best possible solutions is to implement environmental management practices (EMPs). SMEs may encounter varying levels of pressure from customers, regulatory bodies, and the social community regarding environmental behavior and compliance. This study used the Stakeholder theory to develop the research model. The first objective of this study is to determine the effect of SMEs’ external stakeholders, including customer pressure, regulatory pressure, and social community pressure, on food manufacturing SMEs’ intention to adopt EMPs. The second objective is to test the effect of firm size as a moderating variable. A structured questionnaire was administered to 367 food manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia. The findings reveal that the SMEs’ intention to adopt EMPs was significantly related to customer, regulatory, and social community pressures. The study also discovered that firm size only moderated the relationship between customer pressure and the intention to adopt EMPs. The results provided a more robust understanding of the effect of external factors on SMEs’ intentions toward EMPs. Policymakers are recommended to carefully consider those factors to encourage more SMEs to adopt EMPs. SMEs should cultivate a learning and innovative culture to successfully embrace EMPs in a changing business environment

A model for tobacco industry in Malaysia

A study was conducted to analyze the factors affecting the tobacco industry in Malaysia. Tobacco farmers were found to be more concerned with the changes in input particularly, fertilizer. Both incentive scheme for tobacco fertilizer and fertilizer price show significant impact on the area planted as both factors will affect the cost of production. Another significant determinant on supply side is tobacco farm price. Higher price will attract tobacco farmers to be more productive and this will lead to higher yield. On the demand side, the price of cigarette is significant in explaining the changes in tobacco domestic demand. As cigarette price increases, firms will be sensitive towards the price increase and this will reduce the quantity of tobacco consumed by the manufacturers. Lastly, the result shows that import demand for tobacco is income elastic

Public Willingness to Pay For Purple Corn Attributes

Sweet corn (Zea mays L. saccharata), also known as sugar corn or sweet maize, is a popular multi-purpose cereal crop of the family Poaceae (Muhumed et al., 2014). The crop is the second most important crop in Asia after rice. China remains as the largest producer with a production of 260 million MT in 2019. In Malaysia, the crop area is estimated 10 thousand ha with production yield of 73 thousand MT. Purple variety that rich with anthocyanin content is classified as sweet corn that relatively new in local market. The cultivation of purple corn is not encouraging as Malaysian Department of Agriculture (DOA) recorded only eight farmers throughout Malaysia with a total area of 17.7 ha. Considering this variety is new and less accessible, this study evaluates consumers’ Willingness to Pay (WTP) in Malaysia towards purple corn. Data was collected through online platforms using structured questionnaires. The total of 431 responses were received in one month. The discrete choice experiment (DCE) is used to measure consumer WTP and the results showed that anthocyanin content and sweetness of purple corn are positive and significant at the level of 1%. This indicated that the higher the anthocyanin content and corn sweetness, the higher the level of consumer utility would be. Consumers are willing to pay for higher prices than the lowest market price if the purple corn variety satisfies both value-added anthocyanin and sweetness attributes