Consumers’ Appreciation of Regional Certification Labels: A Pan‐European Study

Successful regional products, such as Florida oranges, Idaho potatoes and Parma ham, often have to compete against products passing themselves off as the authentic product using the exact same name. This unfair competition misleads consumers, discourages small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) from marketing products based on their region of origin, and may end up hurting rural economies. To protect consumers, and support SMEs and rural economies, many countries around the world have introduced regulations enabling SMEs to legally protect the names of their regional products. The success of these regulations largely depends on consumers’ appreciation of regional certification labels that inform consumers that the name of the regional product is protected and that it denotes the authentic product. To gain an understanding about consumers’ appreciation of regional certification labels, this paper investigates consumers’ image of these labels and proposes a model that relates this image to consumers’ willingness to buy and pay for protected regional products. The model is tested based on Regulation No. 2081/92 that was introduced by the EEC allowing European SMEs to protect their regional products and market their products with a protected‐designation‐of‐origin (PDO) label. Structural equation modelling results suggest that consumers’ image of regional certification labels consists of a quality warranty dimension and an economic support dimension, which positively relate to consumers’ willingness to buy and pay for the protected regional product. Protecting regional products and marketing them with regional certification labels may be beneficial for SMEs producing and marketing regional products. Policy and managerial implications are discussed.     

Segmentation of the Industrial Market for Food Commodities- A Conjoint Study of Purchase of Vegetable Oils in the Mayonnaise and Margarine Industries

Abstract

The purpose of the study presented in this article is to examine whether the concepts developed in the area of industrial buying behavior can add to the understanding of commodity purchasing behavior, and segmentation of commodity markets. The industrial market for vegetable oil was chosen as the outset of the study, because it is characterized by the appearance of changing demands and technological opportunities, which potentially can lead to differentiation possibilities.

The article describes a framework for the study of industrial buying of food commodities and the results of a conjoint study based on interviews with oil purchasers in the margarine and mayonnaise industries in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The main result of the study is that the price is an omnipotent decision criterion, when vegetable fats and mayonnaise producers buy vegetable oil, but also that product and supplier criteria can be used to segment the market, if the price premium is held within limits.     

On the Segregation of Genetically Modified,Conventional and Organic Products in European Agriculture: A Multi‐market Equilibrium Analysis

Evaluating the possible benefits of the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops must address the issue of consumer resistance as well as the complex regulation that has ensued. In the European Union (EU), this regulation envisions the co‐existence of GM food with conventional and quality‐enhanced products, mandates the labelling and traceability of GM products and allows only a stringent adventitious presence of GM content in other products. All these elements are brought together within a partial equilibrium model of the EU agricultural food sector. The model comprises conventional, GM and organic food. Demand is modelled in a novel fashion, whereby organic and conventional products are treated as horizontally differentiated but GM products are vertically differentiated (weakly inferior) relative to conventional ones. Supply accounts explicitly for the land constraint at the sector level and for the need for additional resources to produce organic food. Model calibration and simulation allow insights into the qualitative and quantitative effects of the large‐scale introduction of GM products in the EU market. We find that the introduction of GM food reduces overall EU welfare, mostly because of the associated need for costly segregation of non‐GM products, but the producers of quality‐enhanced products actually benefit.     

2019—2021年常熟市动物源性食品中喹恶啉类兽药残留监测分析

目的:了解常熟市市场上动物源性食品中喹乙醇、喹恶啉-2-羧酸、3-甲基-喹恶啉-2-羧酸残留情况。方法:2019—2021年,在常熟市各大超市、农贸市场采集各类动物源性食品,采用高效液相色谱-串联质谱法进行检测。结果:喹乙醇在猪肉、鱼肉、鸡肉、牛肉、猪肝和猪肾中均未检出;喹恶啉-2-羧酸在猪肉、鱼肉和牛肉中未检出,在鸡肉中的检出浓度为2.5 μg·kg^-1,检出率为3.3%,在猪肝中的检出浓度为4.8～21.3 μg·kg^-1,检出率为10%,在猪肾中的检出浓度为2.7～6.2 μg·kg^-1,检出率为6.7%;3-甲基-喹恶啉-2-羧酸在鱼肉和牛肉中未检出,在猪肉中的检出浓度为1.7～3.2 μg·kg^-1,检出率为4%,在鸡肉中检出浓度为1.1 μg·kg^-1,检出率为3.3%,在猪肝中的检出浓度为5.6～30.8 μg·kg^-1,检出率为16.7%,在猪肾中的检出浓度为2.9～10.7 μg·kg^-1,检出率为6.7%。结论常熟...     

黑龙江省农业生产资料与农业经济发展的关联分析

黑龙江省是一个农业大省,农业经济对全省经济的发展起到至关重要的作用,而农业生产资料对农业经济的发展有着巨大的影响作用。应用灰色系统理论中关联分析方法和GM(1,1)预测模型,对黑龙江省农业总产值与农业生产资料之间的关系进行关联分析,在其发展趋势预测的基础上,对黑龙江省农业经济发展的趋势关联分析,进而提出黑龙江省实现农业经济持续发展、科学决策对策建议。