Western society is suffering an increasing risk regarding the food chain for several reasons. Longer geographical distances between producers and consumers, more stakeholders in the supply chain, less capacity of national governments to regulate and protect consumers due to globalisation and the...

Food chain analysis is becoming a useful instrument to increase efficiency. We focus the attention in the fish sector looking at the links from consumer to wholesalers in the region of Madrid. In order to get adequate information we developed face to face enquiries to the consumers, retailers...

This paper presents the results of a large-scale study in the Spanish F&DI aimed to identify the motivators, perceived costs, and benefits of implementing ISO 9000 standards. Results indicate the increasing importance of ISO 9000 standards as a strategic tool in the Spanish F&DI with an...

This paper considers the implementation of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) as a methodological framework for the development of new food products. This paper focuses on the beef supply chain and develops a horizontal product’s quality deployment as a strategic tool for the implementation...

The EU food entrepreneurs are facing dramatic changes in the competition arena. Globalization and liberalization processes are offering cheaper food products in international markets, either from countries with better comparative advantages or with more efficient marketing strategies. At the...

China opened its pork import market to Spain in 2007. With this background, we introduce the concept of the Spanish‐Chinese Export‐Import pork chain. An explorative study based on the interview of 22 Spanish meat companies and two experts from meat exporting promotion institutions is...

The organic market is a very particular one. Starting from the premise that organic products are confidence and credibility products which cannot be easily differentiated from the rest, we find that consumers face a risk when purchasing them. In Spain, the marketing chain does not follow the...

International wine market is becoming one of the more dynamic in beverages sector. This paper is a summary of the research developed during 2004-2006 at the UPM with Argentinean exporters. The selection of UK market was due to the high degree of competition between international wines: European,...

The wine value chain is characterized by its traditional nature. The transformation of the raw material makes lasting products with a high added value, which entails large price differences between producers and consumers. Given the socioeconomic important of this sector, it has specially been...

The following paper shows the work in progress in the frame of the specific support action Program “E-Trust”. A initial qualitative study was carried out in order to find out evidences and opinions about the performance of e-commerce in the agricultural and food sector. The paper shows a...