in the coming decades: the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates an increase of the world population from the current 6 billion people to 9-11 billion people by 2050 leading to a doubling of world-wide food demand (FAO 2009). In the meantime, we have already...

This article focuses on the study of the comparative advantages and competitiveness in the global pear market. First, it will outline a clear distinction between these two concepts, followed by analysis. This paper provides a new index of competitiveness developed by our research based on the...

In the modern agrifood economies, the development of quality management standards is crucial, and food small and medium enterprises (SMEs) usually face difficulties in implementing them. In this context, the aim of the article is two-fold. Firstly it is to craft an original analytical framework...

This paper aims at analysing which kinds of currently labelled information are of interest and actually used by consumers, and which additional kinds could improve consumer choices. We investigate the attitude of consumers with respect to innovative strategies for the diffusion of product...

The present study contributes to identifying obstacles to the development of a local biodiesel agro-industrial system (AGS) in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The research questions are: “How do local social characteristics influence the organizational effectiveness of agents involved in...

This paper analyses the “make or buy” decision of food firms applied to innovation strategy using 389 Italian food firms data from the Unicredit 2007 database. We develop a set of hypothesis from three theoretical perspectives such as transaction cost economics, strategic management and...

Organizations no longer compete as independent entities, but as chains (Christopher, 1998; Cox, 1999; Lambert, Cooper, 2000). Consequently, chain strategies became more important in creating competitive advantage (Vickery et al., 2003; Gunasekaran et al., 2004). Despite the growing recognition of the...

The EC funded FI-PPP programme is currently elaborating a large set of enabling technologies that shall help to overcome challenges towards a sustainable networked society of tomorrow. This up-front investment can highly facilitate access to such Internet potentials by food chain SMEs....

Improvements in the food sector imply enhancements of delivering food which is safe, affordable, readily available, and of the quality and diversity consumers expect. However, prevalent information systems (IS) of companies in the food industry are not ready to support further significant...

One of the core requests in assuring competitiveness and sustainability in the food value chain is transparency. Food is a basic human need and as such of paramount interest to consumers. They expect retail to provide guarantees assuring that food is safe to eat and of the quality they request....