The heavy dependence of the EU countries from the imported oil, a growing economic vulnerability caused by wider and almost unforeseeable price changes of the crude oil commodity, the global warming are some of the reasons that have induced the policy makers to incentive the production of...

The goal of this paper is to frame the effect of regulatory burdens in a research outline which enables the study of their effect on the competitiveness of the food and drinks industry, especially the European dairy sector. A firm perspective is used. We address the basic structure and...

During the oil crisis of the seventies, Brazil has developed a successful program for gasoline substitution by ethanol (Proálcool). Nowadays the biomass accounts for 27% of total national energy consumed in Brazil and the ethanol participates with 40% of the total national fuel consumption of...

Supermarket shelves are saturated with numerous varieties and brands of juice beverages. This high level of assortment has dramatically changed beverage consumption patterns and trends throughout the United States. In fact, during 2004-2005, energy and sport drinks experienced significant...

The German meat industry faces a high demand for food safety and traceability. After several meat scandals in the recent past, efforts have to be made to regain consumer trust and to assure access to export markets. Apart from a few niche markets, there is no focal company in the German pork...

Competitiveness of European Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME) in the global marketplace is correlated to and determined by diverse factors. However, specifically SME’s ability to satisfy explicit and implicit customer requirements as well as to proactively integrate them as a driver of...

The public R&D system represents an important part of the framework conditions for carrying out innovation activities and creating commercially applicable knowledge (Drejer and Jørgensen, 2004). It is an important source of information for companies, particularly those that are developing new...

One of the critical success factors for the future development of the agri-food sector is the increased integration of enterprises and other stakeholders in horizontal and vertical ‘communities’. Tracking and tracing, agreements on quality policy, improvements in logistics, dissemination of...

Nowadays food products are produced in vertically collaborating networks. The questions of how such chain networks have to be designed and which governance structure fits best have been addressed in several well known articles. However, questions dealing with chain strategy and management are...

The food system negatively affects the environment, human health and the total well being of the society in many ways, causing: soil and water depletion, pollution due to the waste treatments, acid rains, desertification, climate change, ozone depletion and biodiversity loss. The paper endeavors...