But it came from a food pantry: Product stigma and quality perceptions of food pantry offerings

Among the millions of food insecure people in high income countries, only a modest fraction uses food pantries. Stigma is commonly cited as a barrier to use and may arise due to the perceived low product quality of pantry offerings. This study tests the hypothesis that “product stigma” is present among prospective pantry clients. In an online experimental survey of low-income respondents, we ask participants to evaluate food items under four different treatments. In a two-by-two randomized design, in one dimension they are told the food is from a grocery store or from a food pantry, and in the other dimension they are or are not provided with photos of the food items, in some cases indicating a popular brand. The study finds that respondents exhibit a negative perception of the quality of food from a pantry, but that perception is largely offset when they are shown an informative visual depiction of that food. The effect of brand information is explored in a second online experimental survey and found to be an important component of consumer perception, partly mitigating the product stigma effect of food pantry offerings, but less so than a photo does. Results suggest that food banks and food pantries may combat product stigma through marketing that uses photos, brand names, or both to depict the quality of the products they offer. Such interventions may encourage current users to visit more frequently and needy non-users to visit at all.     

Large investments in the pulp and paper industry: a count data regression analysis

This paper analyses the effects of price and market size variables on the investment propensities in the pulp and paper industry. A panel of 15 European countries in the time period 1988-1997 is used in the regression analysis. We find the wages, the USD/ECU exchange rate, the price of paper and the installed production capacity to be the main determinants of large investments in this industry. Our measure of market size has no - or only very small - effects.     

Preferences for local food: Tourists versus local residents

This study examines preferences for local foods by two distinct consumer groups: local residents and tourists. In an incentive-compatible framed field experiment, a series of dichotomous-choice tasks involving oyster purchases were completed by 758 individuals: 341 local residents recruited at a Division of Motor Vehicles office and 417 tourists recruited at a beach ferry terminal. The experimental design allowed us to investigate differences in preferences between tourists and local residents for locally produced oysters. Our estimates suggest both locals and tourists are willing to pay more for local oysters than for nonlocal ones, though this result is only statistically significant among tourists. The findings from this study shed light on potential designs for labels of food products, particularly when marketed in popular tourism areas.     

World food prices and poverty in Indonesia

Spikes in international food prices in 2007–2008 worsened poverty incidence in Indonesia, both rural and urban, but only by small amounts. The paper reaches this conclusion using a multisectoral and multihousehold general equilibrium model of the Indonesian economy. The negative effect on poor consumers, operating through their living costs, outweighed the positive effect on poor farmers, operating through their incomes. Indonesia's post‐2004 rice import restrictions shielded its internal rice market from the temporary world price increases, muting the increase in poverty. But it did this only by imposing large and permanent increases in both domestic rice prices and poverty incidence. Poverty incidence increased more among rural than urban people, even though higher agricultural prices mean higher incomes for many of the rural poor. Gains to poor farmers were outweighed by the losses incurred by the large number of rural poor who are net buyers of food, and the fact that food represents a large share of their total budgets, even larger on average than for the urban poor. The main beneficiaries of higher food prices are not the rural poor, but the owners of agricultural land and capital, many of whom are urban based.     

Produce Retail Price Volatility and Perceptions in the Canadian Market: Nutrition Security Variances

Nutrition security has been studied but rarely in the context of a developed economy. Furthermore, few studies have looked at how fluctuating produce process may influence nutrition security and how consumers cope with abrupt macro-economic changes. Between 2014 and 2015, Canadian consumers saw produce prices jump by more than 25% in a year in some cases. This exploratory survey looks at socioeconomic factors and evaluates how price increases influence produce consumption and substitution. A total of 1007 respondents participated in a cross national survey over a two-week period. Results show that lower income households are more vulnerable than higher income respondents. Results also explore a few more behavioral factors such as where produce shopping occurs and how market data is gathered before purchases. Respondents who consult flyers and use apps are more likely to behave rationally and cope with changing prices. Some limitations are presented. And finally, future research thrusts related to produce price fluctuations and nutrition security are suggested.     

The impact of food inflation on urban poverty and its monetary cost: some back‐of‐the‐envelope calculations

This article uses a sample of 72 developing countries to estimate the change in the cost of alleviating urban poverty brought about by the recent increase in food prices. This cost is approximated by the change in the poverty deficit (PD), that is, the variation in financial resources required to eliminate poverty under perfect targeting. The results show that, for most countries, the cost represents less than 0.2% of gross domestic product. However, in the most severely affected, it may exceed 3%. In all countries, the change in the PD is mostly due to the negative real income effect of those households that were poor before the price shock, while the cost attributable to new households falling into poverty is negligible. Thus, in countries where transfer mechanisms with effective targeting already exist, the most cost‐effective strategy would be to scale up such programs rather than designing tools to identify the new poor.     

Markets and welfare effects of food fraud

This study develops a theoretical framework of heterogeneous consumers and producers and imperfectly competitive food companies to analyse the system‐wide market and welfare effects of food fraud in the form of food adulteration and mislabelling. The results show that, while the price impacts of food fraud are product‐specific with the equilibrium prices of high‐quality and low‐quality products moving in different directions, the equilibrium quantities depend on the relative magnitude of the demand and supply effects of food fraud. Regarding the welfare effects of food fraud, they are shown to be highly asymmetric across different consumers and producers. In addition to enabling the disaggregation of the welfare effects of food fraud, the explicit consideration of agent heterogeneity, asymmetries in the probability of fraud detection and the endogeneity of the producer quality choices also enables the derivation of a key result of this study; contrary to what is traditionally believed, both low‐quality and high‐quality producers can have economic incentives to commit fraud. The group that is more likely to cheat is determined by the social attitudes towards fraudulent behaviour, the enforcement policy parameters and the relative magnitude of the demand and supply effects of food fraud. A comparison of the market effects of mislabelling and food adulteration reveals that, while the equilibrium quantity of the high‐quality product is higher in the presence of mislabelling, producers are more likely to mislabel than adulterate their products.     

Social capital and collective identity in the local food movement

Social movement actors are seeking alternatives to the highly industrialized, global food system through alternative agri-food initiatives to counter the conventional practices of the industrial food system. Many of these initiatives have proven successful. Social movement researchers have documented the importance of the roles and services social movement organizations provide for movement constituents to realize their success, emphasizing human and financial capital as key components for mobilizing collective action. Researchers have also documented the value of interorganizational networks, and the benefits of collaboration to expand the share of resources, and perhaps more importantly design social movement frames to direct collective action for social change. However, what local food movement research has yet to address are some of the potential barriers that minimize collaboration among organizational leaders as it relates to social capital and collective identity. This paper takes a cross-sectional network analysis of social movement organizations working to increase the sustainability of various areas within the local food system in Marin County, California, a historically agricultural region serving a number of urban communities. Findings from the mixed-methods research reveal evidence of collective identity and social capital as enhancing collaboration among particular types of organizations while reducing potential collaboration among and between other social movement organizations. By analysing the collective identity and dichotomous nature of social capital among social movement organizations, this research contributes a clearer understanding of the existing gaps for increasing the sustainability of a local food system.     

World Commodity Prices and Domestic Retail Food Price Inflation: Some Insights from the UK

We focus on two aspects of the links between world commodity prices and retail food price inflation: first, the effects of exchange rates and other input costs, and second; the effects of the duration of shocks on world commodity markets, not just the magnitude of price spikes (the latter often commanding most attention). The UK offers a natural and rather unexplored setting for the analysis. Applying time series methods to a sample of 259 monthly observations over the 1990(9)–2012(3) period we find substantial and significant long‐term partial elasticities for domestic food price inflation with respect to world food commodity prices, the exchange rate and oil prices (the latter indirectly via a relationship with world food commodity prices). Domestic demand pressures and food chain costs are found to be less substantial and significant over our data period. Interactions between the main driving variables in the system tend to moderate rather than exacerbate these partial effects. Furthermore, the persistence of shocks to these variables markedly affects their effects on domestic food prices.     

Peasant agency in Ghana's oil palm sector: The impact of multiple markets on food sovereignty

This paper contributes to the debate on peasant differentiation and market integration in the food sovereignty literature by examining the smallholder‐oriented oil palm sector in Ghana's eastern region. Against the background of loosening entry barriers in global value chains, and through an analysis of farmers' different positions in palm oil's multiple markets, we witness peasant‐like patterning of production and strategic market participation among well‐situated non‐contract farmers. We propose that such interface settings where commodity relations are present, but do not penetrate fully offer valuable entry points for revisiting the role of global markets in peasant reproduction in the Global South. We consequently argue the need to replace the idealized category of “peasant” with an analytical category that can recognize social differentiation and reproduction through partial engagement with commodity markets.     

Global and local food value chains in Africa: A review

The rapid expansion of agrifood exports from low- and middle-income countries and the contribution of global value chains to rural development are well-documented in the literature. Also, studies on modernization of domestic food value chains in these countries are emerging. Yet, the linkages between global and local value chains are rarely studied. On the one hand, the development and expansion of global value chains may create competition with local value chains for land, labor, water, soil nutrients, and other resources. On the other hand, positive spillover effects, such as investment, technical or institutional spillovers, may occur and spur the development of local value chains. In this article, we put forward a conceptual discussion on the type of linkages between global and local value chains, and how these depend on crop and value chain characteristics. We review the empirical evidence on these linkages. Our focus is on Africa, where agrifood exports and global value chains evolved rapidly and where challenges remain to upgrade and increase efficiency in local food value chains.     

Antitrust analysis of supermarkets: global concerns playing out in local markets

This paper reviews the basic components of antitrust analysis for the supermarket industry, including definition of product and geographic markets and the measurement of market power. The analysis of prices and profits in a market structure context remains important, especially in countries such as Australia with very high supermarket concentration. Firm and brand level New Empirical Industrial Organisation models of demand and oligopoly pricing also provide insights for evaluating antitrust claims. Recent research on vertical pricing games and price transmission expand the analysis to market channel pricing issues, including coalescing power by supermarkets and food manufacturers. The issues and approaches explained in this paper are relevant for policy-orientated research on supermarkets worldwide, including Australia.     

Shocks to food market systems: A network approach

In order to better understand how cross-border price shocks are transmitted to domestic food markets, we augment an error correction model with a network approach and apply it to Tanzania. We show the following. First, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city and port, is not a significant influence. Second, demand shocks emanate primarily from border markets that may serve as conduits for informal trade. Third, market linkages differ considerably across seasons and commodities. Fourth, prices in areas with high production potential are especially sensitive to systemic shocks. More broadly, we show that a network approach in conjunction with time series analysis can enhance our understanding of the origins and channels through which shocks are transmitted to food markets.     

Evaluating price transmission between global agricultural markets and consumer food price indices in the European Union

This paper uses error correction models to evaluate the extent to and speed at which world agricultural commodity price movements affect consumer food prices in the European Union member states. We consider three types of world commodity price indices, each containing different commodities and weighting criteria. Results reveal a long‐run relationship between world agricultural commodity and consumer food prices in over half of the member states. Consumer prices in different member states and categories of member states respond differently to specific world price indices, suggesting that there are disparities in the structure and the efficiency of their food markets. The eurozone founders generally have lower transmission elasticities. This should be taken into account when predicting the impacts of extreme world price volatility and consumer food price rises, prompting governments to pay attention to the most vulnerable households.     

Capitalist food production and the rise of legal adulteration: Regulating food standards in 19th‐century Britain

This paper argues that food adulteration is constitutive of capitalist food production. Through an analysis of the plasticity of legal reasoning on food regulations during the second half of the 19th century in Britain, the paper demonstrates the key role of the state in enforcing the distinction between legal and illegal forms of food adulteration, which is essential to understand contemporary dynamics in food production.     

International honey laundering and consumer willingness to pay a premium for local honey: an experimental study

Fraudulent activities in the international honey market affect 10% of food, and cost the global food market $50 billion per annum. Although many developed countries have created regulations to combat food fraud, illegally imported honey, especially originating from China, still enters through transshipments and relabelling to mask its true origin. This honey laundering poses a health risk to consumers, as Chinese honey potentially contains illegal and unsafe antibiotics and high levels of herbicides and pesticides. We analyse whether information about the negative health impacts of laundered honey increases the proportion of consumers willing to pay a premium for local fraud‐free honey. Using a laboratory experiment, we find when consumers are given honey laundering information, their willingness to pay a premium for local fraud‐free honey increases by as much as 27 percentage points. Our findings suggest that by conveying honey laundering information and guaranteeing their honey is fraud‐free, producers can potentially increase revenues and reduce the prevalence of food fraud. Our results further show that consumers' preference for various honey characteristics and age also influence the probability of paying a premium for local honey.