Organizations no longer compete as independent entities, but as chains (Christopher 1998; Cox 1999; Lambert and Cooper 2000), and these organizations more and more realize the performance potential of chains (Pearson and Samali 2005; Gellynck, Vermeire and Viaene 2006). Being part of a well‐performing...

The concept of products having designated country of origin was investigated. It was established that a coherent approach can be developed by systematic organisation and structuring of the available information. A working definition was developed for identification of successful practices in...

This paper reports on food chain transparency. The research specifically aims to investigate best practices. Therefore, inductive research was conducted, starting with the identification of best practices. Further, underlying patterns were investigated to derive hypotheses and to develop a...

Since over the last twenty years the reduction of trade barriers, the increasing liberalisation, the advancement in ICT have determined a growth in the horizontal and vertical competition among firms in the chain. Therefore, today more than ever they are pressured to develop appropriate...

Knowledge exchange is a prerequisite for learning and consequently for innovation. Through open innovation, the innovating firms establish ties with other organizations, in order to innovate. At the baseline, open innovation is thus the exchange of knowledge through in- and out-flows of the...

In today business world where knowledge and resources are increasingly spread among organizations, enterprises often develop a wide variety of relationships with other organizations in order to access new technologies, know-how and resources. Increasingly, the use of external resources for...

During the last decades, the variable agricultural commodity prices and the increasing producer and consumer prices illustrated the need for more transparency about the pricing of food products in the European food system. Therefore, the European Commission launched in 2009 a public tool, the...

Innovation is widely recognized as being an important strategic tool for companies to increase their competitive advantage. Hereby, networks have become increasingly important as external sources for the necessary knowledge, ideas and financial resources. The main contribution of this paper is...

A widely held view is that a dramatic shift is well underway in the structure of food system. First noticed at the farm level, contracting between retailers and fruit and vegetable growers for specific quality attributes signaled a shift from commodity style markets to relational transactions...

A key feature of food products is their perishability. Within the short marketing window that characterizes most food and ag products, demand is typically highly stochastic and difficult to predict. This combination of features poses substantial challenges to retailers when pricing products and...