Is voluntary nutritional labelling efficient? An analysis of the biscuits and cakes sector in France

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Are nutritional claims an adequate tool for public health? Evidence from food purchases in France

Nutritional claims have become a major instrument for providing consumers with information at the point of purchase, enabling them to make nutritionally appropriate choices. This paper deals with two public policy issues linked to the implementation of nutritional claims, i.e. efficiency and equity, in terms of nutritional outcomes and in terms of population targeting. We consider the French breakfast foods market at the household level using 2004 TNS Worldpanel data. We estimate a demand system taking into account the selection issue. For this we use the Shonkwiler and Yen’s procedure which, unlike Heckman’s, allows participation on every market of products to be controlled for. We propose a modification of this approach to address the methodological issue of satisfying the additivity constraint. This procedure is estimated on a set of dairy and cereal-based products which have different health attributes. Our results show that products with health claims play the role they are expected for. The light variants of dairy foods considered here appear to target households with members at health risk, obese or overweight. But interactions between products suggest some limits to efficiency on nutritional grounds. A higher probability of purchasing light products and with higher quantities coincides with higher purchases of biscuits and dairy desserts. Moreover, since lower income discourage the use of products with health claims, equity is not obtained and this should be stressed for policy implications.Nutritional claims, Food policy, Healthy diet, Censored Demand system, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

An experimental study of wine consumers’ willingness to pay for environmental characteristics

The reduction of pesticides use is becoming a priority for the public authorities in many countries. We conducted an experiment with wine consumers to see whether end-consumers value the dissemination of information about environmentally-friendly production practices. The experiment was devised to (i) evaluate whether there is a premium for environmentally-friendly wines, (ii) determine whether or not consumers are sensitive to label owners who implement and guarantee the environmental actions, (iii) and assess the impact of public messages about the consequences of pesticide use. Some 139 participants were divided randomly into two groups. One group had no specific information about the current state of pesticide use in farming. The other group was given information about pesticide use in farming before making their valuations. Becker-DeGroot-Marshak mechanisms revealed that (i) the environmental signal is valued differently depending on who conveyed the information, and that (ii)dissemination of information about the environmental repercussions of farming methods does not significantly affect willingness-to-pay.Willingness to pay, Wine, Effect of information, Experimental economics, Environment, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Effects of category management on producer-retailer relationships

The relationships between retailers and producers are considered for understanding the determinants of quality, variety and prices. In the food sector, some issues have been extensively studied: impacts of private labels, supply contracts, price transmission. Despite an increasing role, the implementation of “Category management” (CM) has been less studied. CM belongs to a set of methods based on the concepts of Efficient Consumer Response and Supply Chain Management which have been widely implemented by large retailers and thus have changed the relationships among actors in the food chain. As a part of this evolution, Category Captain’s concept (CC) involves a commitment between a retailer and one of the suppliers who receives decision-making power over the product category. Usually, the major of the food suppliers plays the CC’s role in partnership with the retailers. In practices, CC raises many questions. What effects on the sales and prices? Is it beneficial for all the stakeholders, including the consumers? What are their consequences on the non captain suppliers? We propose a vertical relationship model considering that the retailer is the chain’s leader (Stackelberg game). We compare a non-cooperative game (no CC) to a cooperative game (one supplier as CC). We analyse under which conditions CC improves the profit of each stakeholder, as well as the consumers’ surplus. We show that the cooperative game is always a “win, win, win” game for stakeholders (but not necessary for consumers) if the two suppliers offer similar products. If products are different, we define the parameters relationships under which CC is beneficial for stakeholders and consumers.Category captain, shelf space allocation, game theory, Stackelberg equilibrium., Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Minimum Quality Standard and Premium Private Labels

Cet article propose une étude théorique des nouvelles générations de Marques de Distributeurs dans le secteur alimentaire. Nous proposons un modèle original de relation verticale, intégrant l'existence d'un marché intermédiaire de type concurrentiel (marché spot) parallèlement à la mise en place d'une relation contractuelle privilégiée entre une partie des producteurs amont et un distributeur. On montre alors sous quelles conditions les producteurs impliqués et le distributeur vont effectivement mettre en place ce type de démarches. Il apparaît néanmoins qu'à l'inverse des producteurs, les distributeurs et les consommateurs peuvent préférer une amélioration légiférée de la qualité par un renforcement des standards de qualité minimum.Relations verticales;Grande distribution;Sécurité sanitaire;Standard de qualité minimum;Marques de distribution

Retailer-led Regulation of Food Safety : Back to Spot Markets?

At the end of the 1990s European retailers had significantly contributed to restructuring fresh agricultural product food chains (meat, fruit and vegetables), and had turned away from spot markets in order to create their own supply chains, based on private technical requirements and verification systems usually managed from within the firm. However, over the last few years a second type of system has appeared, as the range of standards adopted by retailers has been broadened to include generic standards common to several retailers. A telling example of this new approach is provided by the EUREPGAP protocol. In this paper we propose a theoretical analysis of this new procedure and its possible impacts.food safety, spot markets, retailer, supply chain, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Food Safety, Liability and Collective Norms

Afin de renforcer la sécurité sanitaire des produits alimentaires, la grande distribution met en place un certain nombre de normes restrictives sur le référencement des producteurs. Cet article étudie le fonctionnement économique de ces normes, dans le cadre d'une formalisation des relations verticales producteurs-distributeurs. Le modèle d'analyse intègre à la fois un risque endogène de marché (lié à l'adoption ou non des normes sécurisées par les agriculteurs) ainsi qu'un risque de pénalité pour les distributeurs défectueux (en cas de crise sanitaire). Nous montrons comment ce dernier principe de politique publique, dit de « responsabilité », explique en partie l'action coordonnée des distributeurs et peut de fait influencer le risque sanitaire.

FIRMS’ RESPONSES TO NUTRITIONAL POLICIES

The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of nutritional policies on the behavior of firms, particularly in terms of food quality and prices, and to assess the potential impacts of such policies from a public health point of view. We determine how new products that are nutritionally improved can emerge in a market where incumbent firms offer competing unhealthy products. We also highlight a non-intentional effect of such policies: if consumer heterogeneity is high, then an information policy may simultaneously provide health benefits to the population as a whole but worsen the health of consumers that are less aware of nutritional effects. For a given level of nutritional tax, we determine the optimal threshold that firms must meet to avoid taxation. It appears that this threshold must not be too high if the goal of nutritional policies is to increase total health benefits without increasing health disparities between consumers. An increase in the tax level has two opposing effects. On one hand, it improves health benefits for consumers that are less aware of nutrition issues. On the other hand, because it leads to an increase in prices as a result of a reduction in the competition intensity, it decreases the cost-effectiveness of the policy.Nutrition policy, product differentiation, firms’ strategies, taxation, quality standards, public health, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Health Economics and Policy, L15, I18, H23,

Quality standards versus nutritional taxes: Health and welfare impacts with strategic firms

The goal of this paper is to better understand firms' strategic reactions to nutritional policies targeting food quality improvements and to derive optimal policies. We propose a model of product differentiation, taking into account the taste and health characteristics of products. We study how two firms react to alternative policies: an MQS policy, linear taxation of the two goods on the market, and taxation of the lowquality good. The MQS and the taxation of the low-quality product are the preferred options by a social planner. If taste is moderately important, the MQS policy is chosen by a populist and a paternalist social planner. If taste is a major component of choice, the populist planner chooses to tax the low-quality product whereas the paternalist planner prefers the MQS policy. Finally, for a paternalist social planner, an MQS-based policy always allows for higher levels of welfare than an information policy alone

Food Safety, Liability and Collective Norms

Over the last few years, retailers have implemented new collective private norms in order to improve food safety and reduce the risks related to microbial contamination and pesticide residues. In this paper, we propose a model of vertical relationships in which a group of retailers imposes more stringent specifications to upstream producers. We consider that the contamination risk is endogenously determined by the efforts made by the producers in order to improve food safety. We also consider that the penalty costs – related to the liability rule in the event of a crisis – decrease accordingly as the requirement level of the collective norm rises. We show how the liability rule influences the level of the collective norm and the contamination riskAfin de renforcer la sécurité sanitaire des produits alimentaires, la grande distribution met en place un certain nombre de normes restrictives sur le référencement des producteurs. Cet article étudie le fonctionnement économique de ces normes, dans le cadre d'une formalisation des relations verticales producteurs-distributeurs. Le modèle d'analyse intègre à la fois un risque endogène de marché (lié à l'adoption ou non des normes sécurisées par les agriculteurs) ainsi qu'un risque de pénalité pour les distributeurs défectueux (en cas de crise sanitaire). Nous montrons comment ce dernier principe de politique publique, dit de « responsabilité », explique en partie l'action coordonnée des distributeurs et peut de fait influencer le risque sanitaire