Consumers are increasingly considering information on how foods are produced in making their buying decisions. For example, in the United States sales of products labeled as organic were estimated at over $3 billion in 1996. Federal and state governments are facing tough choices in deciding how...

The branded integration strategy is not new. Recall that Agrimark owned Hood in a joint venture with Agway for many years. It did not work for many reasons, including the fact that Agrimark was prohibited by the U.S. Justice Department from direct representation on the Hood board of directors....

Our recent meeting provided a factual basis for analysis of alternative milk policies. We analyzed the cost of production on farms, in processing, and in retailing. We collected and analyzed prices at the retail, wholesale, and farm level. This exercise gave us a rare glimpse into the...

Since November of 2002, the Food Marketing Policy Center has periodically conducted price surveys of milk in New York and Southern New England (Cotterill, et. al. 2002; Rabinowitz, et. al. 2003;Cotterill 2003). Results of these surveys, when coupled with data on the underlying cost of the raw milk, have...

When a competitor buys another competitor in a local food market, prices may increase because there is less competition. The antitrust laws are designed to prevent mergers that most likely will result in higher prices. Economists do three things to help legal authorities determine whether a...

Last November, the Food Marketing Policy Center conducted a survey of retail milk prices in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and parts of southeast New York (Cotterill, et al., 2002). That look at the price distribution over space aided in answering several questions regarding milk...

With the help of four University of Connecticut graduate students, two weeks ago I surveyed milk prices in 195 grocery stores in southern New England and neighboring parts of New York. The average price for milk in Providence supermarkets was $3.03 a gallon (the average prices for the major...

At the outset we would like to thank the Committee on the Environment for the opportunities to submit this written testimony and to address the Committee on an important issue today. Milk pricing in New England and Massachusetts has been contentious for several years because of two interrelated...

Dairy farming continues to be a major agricultural activity in the state of Connecticut. Although the number of dairy farms in the state has declined over the past decade, aggregate production has remained stable, and Connecticut farms have, on average, higher production than New York or Vermont...

The proposed Connecticut milk pricing law for milk establishes two price collars. The general concept is as follows. Wholesale fluid milk prices will be limited to no more than 140% of the raw fluid price, and retail prices will be limited to no more than 140% of the wholesale price. These 140%...