TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to get a consumer’s cross-cultural insight on the potential of using social networking sites as short food supply chains.Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach, using free listing tasks and sentence completion techniques, was adopted in this research. The research group decided to apply the study in three countries with different cultural backgrounds, namely, Mexico, Spain and Egypt. The final sample consisted of 424 respondents in total, including 209 Spanish, 111 Mexicans and 104 Egyptians, all of them actual users of social networks.Findings The most significant result that emerges from this study is that a high percentage of consumers within the three countries might be interested in these new short food chains. Also, the study offers food companies the most relevant motivations and barriers of consumers for their engagement to this initiative. Also, the study provides categories of foods that consumers would purchase via these chains in each country.Originality/value The multicultural perspective of this study might open new opportunities for food businesses around the world, especially for SMEs, to develop new short food supply chains enabling them to increase sale levels and, therefore, increase profitability and reduce costs.
VL  - 120
IS  - 10
SN  - 0007-070X
DO  - 10.1108/BFJ-11-2017-0633
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-11-2017-0633
AU  - Elghannam Ahmed
AU  - Arroyo Julian
AU  - Eldesouky Ali
AU  - Mesias Francisco J.
PY  - 2018
Y1  - 2018/01/01
TI  - A cross-cultural consumers’ perspective on social media-based short food supply chains
T2  - British Food Journal
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 2210
EP  - 2221
Y2  - 2024/04/20
ER  -