An investigation into the availability and economic accessibility of food items in rural and urban areas of Northern Ireland

The question of access to food has three components: physical access to food, financial access to food and access to information about food. This study explores the issue of financial access to food. The affordability of food is a major consideration for consumers, an important marketing tool for retailers and a principal theme in food policy. Research methods included a comparative shopping exercise (shopping basket analysis) in 109 stores across four towns (two urban and two rural) in Northern Ireland. Store type included multiples (major supermarket chains) and symbol group stores (those stores operating under a franchise from one main buying group). Results indicate that in the main it is cheaper to buy from the multiples, shopping from a symbol group store can incur cost penalties of up to 39.4% above the multiples’ prices. Price disparities, analysed using z‐scores, were apparent between towns and across store types. Similarly, an availability audit of foodstuffs portrayed the multiples as the most comprehensive from which to shop, whereas symbol group stores fared poorly in the availability of fresh green vegetables, carcass meat and wholemeal breads. This is an important issue because it plays an integral part in the health inequality debate and also relates to social exclusion. Fundamentally, financial access to food impinges upon the whole question of food‐purchasing behaviour in terms of accessibility, affordability and availability. Therefore, economic access to food can be used as a useful precursor to a comprehensive analysis of food access in its entirety. It is also useful as an indicator of social exclusion. This study seeks to inform and influence the food policy debate.     

Analysing consumers' ‘activism’ in response to rising prices

The purpose of this paper was to compose the profile of active consumers in Greece during a period of rising prices taking into account shifts in their consumption. A survey was conducted from 1 September 2008 to 21 November 2008 to collect the primary data source for the study. Questionnaires were administered to 200 consumers. To our knowledge this was the first attempt to offer insight into the characteristics of the Greek consumer in a period of economic crisis. For this purpose, econometric analysis was employed. Empirical results suggested that high‐income groups spend more for food commodities and are less likely to be active consumers. It was concluded that consumers have reduced spending for some basic and semi‐luxury products like fruits, meat, alcohol, sweets and coffee, and entertainment activities. The main factor which affected the reaction to price increases, as expected, was the monthly private income. Twenty per cent of the consumers are members of a national consumer movement organization, and support their actions against rising prices. Women, who research the market before purchasing a product, are more likely than men to participate in economic boycotts. By examining the profile of non‐active consumers and the reasons for their behaviour, we are able to propose a policy for the activation of the Greek consumer movement, which is necessary for the consumers' resistance to rising prices. Taking into consideration that Greek consumers face increased prices for food commodities and services, a policy framework to activate consumers is among the main prerequisites for maintaining consumers' well being. We suggest that the Greek Consumer Protection Institutes should regain consumers' confidence and focus on the dissemination of information about organized economic boycotts.     

Evaluating the urban consumer with regard to sourcing local food: a Heart of England study

This paper critically explores consumer perceptions and trends regarding purchasing locally produced food. Until recently, much of the research in this area largely focused on regional consumers where rural consumers had reasonable access to locally produced food and were usually in close proximity to the producers within, or close to, their immediate community. Here, the objectives of the primary research focused instead on urban attitudes and perceptions of local food within the Greater Birmingham conurbation in the West Midlands region of the UK. Birmingham is by far the most highly populated urban area of the region, and with ample opportunities to promote local food. Consumers, based mainly in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, were questioned on their locally produced food‐buying habits and attitudes in order to determine any differences in urban perceptions and buying attitudes compared with rural counterparts, and also to identify any new and potential opportunities for local food producers. Originally, 1000 questionnaires were obtained from across Greater Birmingham and Wolverhampton. However, for the purposes of this paper, it was decided to focus on two urban city centres – Birmingham and Wolverhampton, with 148 questionnaires. The results indicate that urban consumers are generally confused about what the term ‘local’ food means. The reasons for purchasing local food, while generally consistent with national patterns, differed in that supporting the local producers was not regarded as important. Barriers to purchase were largely unsurprising for an urban area, as the top choices were ‘too expensive’ followed by ‘not readily available’ and ‘no time to find it’. Understanding, information, availability and access to local food emerge as the biggest challenges to urban consumers in buying local food.     

Oil prices decline as concerns about supplies lessen

Expectations of shorter oil supplies in the case of a war in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices upwards for many months, but in March prices started to fall significantly even before the war against Iraq had started. Does the price peak lie behind us, and can oil consumers even hope — after the war — for a prolonged period of low oil prices?     

Antecedents of rural and urban consumers' propensity to outshop and product specific outshopping behaviour

Retail sector survives in the face of severe competition caused especially by outshopping activity. Outshopping involves residents—urban or rural—of one area travelling to another area, usually larger retail developments, to buy goods. This practice is of special concern to retailers particularly when consumers outshop even if the product is available locally. This study aims to understand how psychographics influence the propensity to outshop among urban and rural consumers, and more specifically to find out which products they purchase. It analyzes a quota sample of 298 usable responses from urban and rural areas of northern Gujarat. A structured questionnaire was administered through survey approach. From an exploratory analysis, six factors were extracted and regressed with a propensity to outshop among consumers, followed by the analysis of variance to determine which products were outshopped by consumers. The study demonstrates that rural consumers’ propensity to outshop is influenced by factors such as outlet prone, local involvement, and time saving opinions, urban consumers’ propensity to outshop is influenced by travelling oriented, outshopping interests, and time saving opinions. Additionally, rural consumers outshop for sports goods and flooring materials, while urban consumers outshop for children's clothing and fancy items for women’s use. This study can help retailers to tailor-make their communication strategies for rural and urban consumers. In addition, it can contribute significantly in understanding the retail flow for specific product categories, which in turn, can help retailers in designing marketing mix strategies for expanding their customer base.     

How Have Restaurant Firms Responded to Food Safety Crises? Evidence From Media Coverage

Media communication has become a crucial part of crisis communications due to the rapid dissemination of information along with its immense impact on consumers and other stakeholders. Based on a structured content analysis of electronic media reports on restaurant-associated food safety crises from 1993 to 2015, this study examined media reporting patterns focusing on three elements: instructing information, crisis response strategies, and stakeholders. This study also identified the effect of situational factors (severity of risk and crisis type) on the media reporting patterns using Chi-square tests. The results indicated that restaurant firms were more likely to use proactive than passive response strategies, and identified primary stakeholders during a food safety crisis such as regulatory agencies, victims, and customers. Finally, two situational factors were found to influence the pattern of media reporting. The media reporting patterns were found to vary by risk severity and crisis type.     

Measuring Consumer Sensitivity to Corporate Social Performance Across Cultures

ABSTRACT

In the context of a severe economic crisis, the objective of this research is to examine to what extent the economic crisis and austerity's measures have generated new marketing strategies in food companies. We develop a comparative analysis though multivariate analysis of variance, consisting of 10 food product categories across eight European countries, distinguishing between countries that needed financial support—the so-called rescued countries—and the countries with better economic development. Our findings show an increasingly trend toward increasing product prices and price per quantity in the rescued countries, along with an increase in the package content. Our findings suggest that food companies have been raising prices through the recession, as consumers continue to pare their spending and demand.     

Farmers' markets: consuming local rural produce

Marketing food directly from producers to consumers, so circumventing the ‘middlemen’ in the food supply chain, has many potential benefits. For consumers, direct marketing initiatives are providing people with locally grown, fresh, healthy and, in many cases, organic food at affordable prices. Through buying locally grown produce, consumers are giving their support to local producers as well as helping to revitalize rural economies. Producers benefit through retaining more of the value of their produce, which can help them survive through the current crisis in UK farming. There are also environmental benefits. Creating markets where people can buy produce from local farmers and growers reduces the distance that food travels between producers and consumers, which in turn decreases global environmental pollution. One direct marketing scheme – the farmers’ market – has proved to be particularly popular with local people, producers and the local councils, organizations and institutions who are involved in setting them up. This paper focuses on one such market, the Stour Valley Farmers' Market, which commenced trading on 20th June 1999. Customers who attended the first three of these monthly markets were interviewed to investigate the reasons for their attendance at the market, and their attitudes towards a number of food issues including organic and genetically modified food, local and seasonal food and concerns they may have over the way their food is produced. The research has shown that most customers visited the markets initially out of curiosity, although some attended specifically to buy healthy fresh foods. The vast majority of interviewees expressed a preference for food which is organically grown and free from genetic modification. Organic foods are generally perceived to be healthier and more flavoursome. When buying fresh foods, interviewees stated the importance of quality and freshness in their choice of produce.     

The Tunisia Wheat Market in the Context of World Price Volatility: A Stochastic Partial Equilibrium Approach

Food security is a key objective of agricultural and food policy in Tunisia. The 2007–2008 food crisis highlighted the negative impacts of price volatility on international markets both in terms of food insecurity and budget exposure. Tunisian food subsidy expenditures ranged from $180 million to $710 million in 2006–2010, so volatile world prices meant volatile subsidy costs. Moreover, cereal production in Tunisia still has much instability due to climate conditions, which also influences imports and, consequently, subsidy expenditures. This study applies a structural model to conduct stochastic analyses of trade and policy impacts on food security and budget expenditures in the Tunisian wheat market. The methodology disaggregates durum wheat and soft wheat markets and generates projections of import prices of durum wheat and soft wheat, using projections of world prices provided by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at University of Missouri (FAPRI-MU). The key innovation is the generated stochastic analyses of subsidy costs based on stochastic world price projections and stochastic domestic wheat yields based on historic yield variances. The analysis highlights the sensitivity of subsidy costs to world prices, volumes imported and domestic production, so that alternative policy tools can be considered.     

Four myths and a financial crisis

The main driving force of the financial crisis of 2007‐2009 was a rapid deterioration of the trust of private agents in the quality of financial institutions. In turn, this loss of confidence entailed a sharp decline in many asset prices and brought to their knees several large financial institutions with centennial traditions. This article surveys the critical moments of the crisis, presents some of the shock‐amplifying mechanisms, and comments on the effectiveness of various policy measures. We point out four conceptual myths that did not survive this crisis. The conclusion opens the debate on what structural changes in the existing financial architecture are required to contain such crises in the future. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Non-market provision of food by low-income households

A model of food provision through growing, hunting or raising food was developed. Food supply was less of a problem for those who grew, raised or hunted their food than for others. Non-market food provision was a viable alternative for consumers regardless of educational levels, income levels and employment status. Home food production varied by other characteristics. There was not a significant difference between urban and rural households in some types of food provided. Results of this study can be helpful to professionals assisting households with resource use and to policy makers concerning policies to assist low-income consumers.     

Consumer value conflicts surrounding ethical food purchase decisions: a focus on animal welfare

Ethical attitudes in relation to meat purchases were studied among urban and rural consumers in Scotland. All subjects perceived at least some ethical issues in relation to animal production systems, in particular, systems keeping animals in close confinement. Welfare‐friendly production systems were viewed as adding value to a food, but this value was not necessarily realizable to producers if purchases occurred only when foods were on special offer. Statements made by individuals were often contradictory, revealing ambivalence, unresolved value conflicts and a general lack of involvement in the nature of meat production. A number of barriers to the establishment of stable attitudes and behaviours in relation to the ethical treatment of food animals were also identified. A key finding of the study is that individuals can hold two views on animal welfare. On the one hand, they may think as citizens influencing societal standards, and on the other, as consumers at the point of purchase. As citizens, they support the notion of animals being entitled to a good life; as meat consumers, they avoid the cognitive connection with the live animal. This paper explores both the citizen–consumer relationship and purchase strategies used by consumers to resolve value conflicts. Lessons for public and commercial policy are highlighted in the context of the Curry Report (2002) which advocates more effective market segmentation where markets are finely attuned to their customers, with the development of a number of assurance schemes discussed in the article.     

Assessing the Impact of Rice Import Quota Policy on the Malaysian Rice Sector

ABSTRACT

After the food crisis in 2008, the Malaysian government reintroduced their efforts to reach rice self-sufficiency and to stabilize domestic prices by using a rice import quota of 700,000 tons per year. Though with the emergence of trade liberalization and regional agreements, Malaysian government interventions should be limited. Therefore, this article attempts to assess the impact of removing the rice import quota on the rice sector in Malaysia using a system dynamics model. The simulated results showed that due to developing rice-based industry in Malaysia and its effects on the rice market situation, the rice import quota might have a negative impact on increasing farmers’ income, more affordable prices for consumers, and diversification of food in Malaysia.     

The Impact of Publishing Foodservice Inspection Scores

ABSTRACT

The publishing of food safety inspection scores in the media has been the subject of much debate and controversy among consumers, health inspectors, and reporters. Part of the debate centers around whether publishing the results of health inspections by the media influences foodservice establishments to gain better scores, since the media influence consumers' decisions as to whether or not to patronize an establishment. Using a case study approach, the health inspection scores obtained from Tippecanoe County, Indiana, US are analyzed prior to and after media reporting began to determine if the publishing of scores does impact the scores foodservice establishments receive. The results show that overall inspection scores and individual inspector's inspection scores increased and the number of consumer complaints to the health department decreased. This suggests that the reporting of restaurant inspections in the media not only provides information to consumers, but may also impact the inspection process itself.     

Extreme volatility,speculative efficiency,and the hedging effectiveness of the oil futures markets

This study investigates the efficiency of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) Division light sweet crude oil futures contract market during recent periods of extreme conditional volatility. Crude oil futures contract prices are found to be cointegrated with spot prices and unbiased predictors of future spot prices, including the period prior to the onset of the Iraqi war and until the formation of the new Iraqi government in April 2005. Both futures and spot prices exhibit asymmetric volatility characteristics. Hedging performance is improved when asymmetries are accounted for. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:61–84, 2007     

Local and/or organic: a study on consumer preferences for organic food and food from different origins

This paper gives a deeper insight into consumer preferences for different food products of varying place of origin (i.e. local, Germany, neighboring country, non‐EU country) and production practices (i.e. organic vs. non‐organic). Consumer surveys combined with choice experiments were conducted with 641 consumers in eight German regions. Mixed logit models were estimated to draw conclusions on consumers’ preferences for different product attributes. The Stimulus‐Organism‐Response model was applied to theoretically frame the key findings. Results reveal that consumers prefer locally produced food to organic food. However, conclusions on consumers’ preferences should not be generalized as they vary depending on product type and consumers’ place of residence. When looking at the willingness‐to‐pay estimates for ‘organic’ and ‘local’ while distinguishing among consumers from different regions of Germany, results indicate that consumers living in rural areas and consumers living in the eastern part of Germany are less willing to pay a premium for organic products than urban consumers and consumers from other parts of Germany. As preferences for origin attributes and organic production vary between different food products and in different regions of Germany, market actors should design marketing activities accordingly. This study adds to the international research on consumers’ preferences for organic and/or local food. The results provide better insights into preference structures, as more than one product has been included and surveys were conducted in different regions across Germany.     

High Natural Gas Prices in California, 2000–2001: Causes and Lessons

The market prices of natural gas delivered to California rose to unprecedented levels in late 2000 and remained well above levels elsewhere in the country until the summer of 2001 (Figure 1). In addition to the direct impact on natural gas consumers, the high natural gas prices were also a major cause of the high electricity costs suffered by California and other western states in the June 2000–June 2001 period. This paper describes the market and regulatory circumstances that led to such high prices over such an extended period. Lessons are drawn from this experience for other regions wishing to understand and avoid such problems in natural gas markets.     

物流经济条件下我国应对世界“粮食危机”的价格政策

当前国际粮食价格飞涨,在世界范围内掀起了新一轮的粮食危机。作为粮食需求大国,我们有必要对国外的粮食危机与国内的现状进行深入分析,以此指导我国的粮食价格政策转变。粮食危机是粮食价格增长过快、供给不足的表现,而价格增长源于供给不足,故国际粮食危机的根源是供给不足。种粮危机是目前我国粮食政策所应重点关注的问题。     

How to serve online consumers in rural markets: Evidence-based recommendations

Online shopping is growing significantly among rural consumers interested in overcoming product assortment limitations in their local markets. Retailers are taking notice, and some are looking for first-mover-advantage opportunities in rural areas where they see greater potential for growth when compared to saturated urban markets. However, expanding to these areas presents significant and unresolved challenges related to last mile fulfillment caused by low levels of population density as well as other socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. In this article, we present an integrated set of recommendations for online retailers to differentiate strategies to serve rural markets efficiently. To that end, we partnered with an online grocery retailer to examine differences between rural and urban consumers across online shopping preferences that significantly impact fulfillment costs. We draw on those differences and existing knowledge on last mile fulfillment operations to propose a tailored consumer value proposition and operational model for last mile fulfillment in rural markets.     

Rising prices and coping strategies of urban families in India

This study examines how Indian urban households coped with rising prices over the period 1995–1996 to 1999–2000. It provides evidence of cost of living indices and the coping strategies of urban households belonging to different income groups. Although there has been a lively debate on inflation and related issues, most of the studies were macro studies, which have not paid explicit attention to the impact of rising prices on the coping and financial management responses of the affected families. This paper is a part of a larger cross‐sectional study on the impact of rising prices on quality of life and financial management practices of Indian urban households belonging to five different income groups. This paper provides the evidence on cost of living indices and the coping strategies adopted by these households to combat an otherwise hostile economic environment. It found that the impact of cost of living indices differs across different income groups depending upon the composition of the consumption basket and the proportion of expenditure incurred on specific items of that basket. It is also observed that rational responses of households played an important role in coping with increased cost of living. The evidence suggests that a wide range of coping strategies is adopted by households such as consumption reallocation and seeking increased earning opportunities as part of their backward and forward coping strategies.