Growing consumer interest in functional foods and nutraceuticals has been seen as a significant business opportunity for the agri-food sector. Many of the new firms in this sector are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). These SMEs often face difficulties in obtaining financing for their...

Bioproducts are often presented as one of the potential saviours of Canadian agriculture, offering non-food applications for agricultural products. However, relatively little is known about the sector or the characteristics of the firms. This paper presents an analysis of the Canadian...

This study estimates Canadian consumers' willingness to pay for food safety improvements and identifies systematic misassessments of food-borne risks. Non-hypothetical experimental auctions were used to elicit consumer valuations of food safety improvement. Consistent with behavioural research,...

This study assesses quantitatively the economic incentives for firms to adopt food safety controls and the potential impact of a number of firm and market-specific characteristics on this behavior, focusing on the red meat and poultry-processing sector in Canada.

Private sector responses to the challenge of managing food safety are explored. This paper clarifies the objectives of this special issue, introducing the key issues in each of the following articles. The degree and manner of regulatory compliance, an important element of any strategic food...

Growing consumer interest in functional foods and nutraceuticals has been seen as a significant business opportunity for the agri-food sector. Many of the new firms in this sector are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). These SMEs often face difficulties in obtaining financing for their...

This paper explores the competing concepts of 'standards as barriers' and standards as catalysts' in the context of food safety standards in international trade in agricultural and food products. It is suggested that food safety standards can act as both a barrier to trade and the basis of...