Can an Industry Voluntary Agreement on Food Traceability Minimize the Cost of Food Safety Incidents?

In the recent past the United States has had a number of severe food-safety outbreaks in the produce, vegetable and beef industry that greatly disrupted the food system. In all these outbreaks here were severe disruptions on sales that affected the whole industry, and it took an extended period of time to correctly locate the source of the outbreak. Traceability can be an effective tool to reduce the impact of food safety incidents my expediting the search for the origin of outbreaks. This paper investigates to what extent an industry-led voluntary agreement for providing traceability can reduce the cost of a food-safety outbreak. We find that a voluntary agreement on traceability can successfully reduce the cost of a food-safety outbreak but will unlikely achieve the optimal social level of traceability because of significant free riding.Traceability, voluntary agreements, food safety, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The Economics of Traceability for Multi-Ingredient Products: A Network Approach

The consumption of multi-ingredient foods is increasing across the globe as consumers spend less time preparing meals. Traceability is now extensively used to reduce information imperfections in food markets and recent EU law suggests it will be implemented for manufactured meals as well. We present a model developed to understand how information on different ingredients flows through supply chains for multi-ingredient food products. The network model has three tiers linked by contracts for levels of quality and information. The model is useful for analyzing tradeoffs and network effects emerging in the choice of traceability levels.Traceability, multi-ingredient foods, network models, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Traceability Adoption at the Farm Level: An Empirical Analysis of the Portuguese Pear Industry

Traceability is becoming a condition for doing business in European food markets. Retailers are adopting standards that are more stringent than what is mandatory. An example is EurepGAP, a quality standard for good agricultural practices that includes traceability as a main requirement. We analyze EurepGAP implementation in the Portuguese pear industry and find that implementation cannot be distinguished from sales to British supermarkets. Discrete choice models show the odds of traceability adoption increase with farm size and previous compliance with quality assurance schemes, while farm productivity has a negative impact on the probability of adoption.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Optimal choice of Voluntary traceability as a food risk management tool

Traceability systems are information tools implemented within and between firms in food chains to improve logistics and transparency or to reduce total food safety damage costs. Information about location and condition of products is critical when food safety incidents arise. This paper uses a principal-agent model to investigate the optimal choice of voluntary traceability in terms of precision of information on a given attribute at each link of a food chain. The results suggest that four scenarios may emerge for the supply chain depending on the costs of a system and whether or not the industry can internalize total food safety damages: no traceability, traceability for one link, equal traceability for all links, or different positive traceability levels across all links.Traceability, food safety, principal-agent model, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Objectiveness in the Market for Third-Party Certification: Does market structure matter?

The globalization of trade in high quality foods is stimulating the development of international food standards and certification systems. Third-party certification as evolved as a means of ensuring that product information and signals on quality and safety attributes are sound and reliable. Certification can only provide credible market signals if it operates objectively and independently. This paper investigates the potential trade-off between certifiers objectivity and the level of competition in the rapidly expanding market for third-party certification of quality foods. Based on a theoretical supply chain framework a nested panel analysis is applied to a set of accredited certifiers for the EurepGAP fruits and vegetables standard. Our results indicate that increasing economies of scale and market share in certification do matter.Third-party certification, objectiveness, market structure, nested panel analysis, EurepGAP, Marketing,

Portuguese Retailers’ Motivations to Adopt Front of Pack Nutrition Labels: A Qualitative Analysis

Nutrition is an important food marketing differentiation criterion. There is growing evidence of the relation between diets and health conditions. Thus there is a potential conflict between industry and public health authorities over the use of nutrition labels. Understanding industry motivations for simplified nutrition labels use is paramount to scrutinize market dynamics, improve label policy design and its evaluation. The aim of this research is to ascertain how retailers perceive consumer’s attitudes to nutrition labels and what motivates their use. We conducted in-depth semi-structure interviews with senior managers in leading Portuguese retail chains. Our results suggest that retailers’ adopt FOP to aid their customers’ food choices, as a response to competitors’ moves and preempt labeling regulations. However, respondents were concerned on whether nutrition labels added value to their business, has a negative impact on sales in certain food categories and may hinder relations with suppliers.Nutrition labels, retailers, semi-structured interviews, content analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Q18, M31, M38, M14,

Does traceability play a role in retailer’s strategies for private labels?

Traceability is helping retailers manage food safety risks and support product differentiation. This paper aims to investigate how traceability may be used to screen supplier for private labels dedicated provider pools. Retailers in the UK and Italy have several private label product lines and increasingly select dedicated suppliers. The choice of providers is a typical agency problem as retailers contract the production for their private labels, having incomplete information on types and effort of their suppliers. Different contracts must be designed for suppliers of private labels depending on position of the product line and its food safety risk. A case study, based on the second largest Italian retailer reveals that traceability and quality assurance schemes are used together to manage suppliers of private labelsTraceability, dedicated providers, food products, retailing, vertical coordination, Marketing, Q13, Q18, L81, L66, L15,

Valuing nested names in the Portuguese olive oil market: An exploratory study

The Portuguese olive oil market had a remarkable development in recent years. Production is rising steadily is response to a EU program supporting a renewal of olive groves. Moreover there is a proliferation of national brands and private labels. These are often associated to regional collective labels or to organic production. The aim of our research is to determine how consumers value these nested names or co-brands. We conducted a pilot survey on a convenience sample of 103 consumers in the Oporto and Lisbon metropolitan areas as well in a rural area. Our results reveal some contradictions, for instance while origin is an important purchasing criteria, few PDO olive oils are recognized. Moreover, only 25% of respondents identify organic olive oils sold in the market and this attribute is one of the last purchasing criteria, but organic olive oils have the highest willingness to pay. Finally we find that associating a PDO to private labels increases willingness to pay by 33.3%, but doesn’t affect valuation of national brands. While we can’t take definite conclusions our findings give us interesting cues for future research. Therefore we aim to investigate whether regional identity, alternative usage and health or environmental conscience determine of affect valuation and choices of different olive oils brands and labels.olive oil, nested names, valuation., Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Labor and Human Capital,

Economic Evaluation of Food Traceability Systems through Reference Models

Food supply chains complexity present a real challenge to perform economic evaluation of food traceability systems and their innovation/upgrades. In order to perform a supply chain wide economic evaluation a conceptual framework is developed using food traceability reference models. Reference models allow interaction with chain members’ requirements that come from legal and/or customer sources. The paper demonstrates how the requirements will have a definite effect on the costs and design of food traceability systems through the resources they demand. Even though this is a first step into addressing the challenge, more investigation is needed to clarify the boundaries of the two requirements and their economic effects on food traceability systems and their innovations/upgrades.Food traceability, Food traceability systems, Reference models, Economic evaluation., Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization,

What Determines the Success of a Geographical Indication? A Price-based Meta-Analysis for GIs In Food Products

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,