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Psychological factors, such as body image dissatisfaction and the negative feelings associated with it may be related to the adoption of unhealthy eating behaviours. Also, body image dissatisfaction may lower the likelihood of engaging in long-term healthy eating habits and in the level of attention paid to the quality of the food consumed. As a result, body image may be related to consumers’ choice to purchase and consume health-enhancing food products. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A pilot study of a small sample of Italian yogurt consumers was employed to explore if there is a relationship between respondents’ level of body image dissatisfaction and the number of health-enhancing yogurt choices. The data were collected by means of a virtual-shelf technique and were analysed using a negative binomial regression.

Results indicate that body image dissatisfaction is inversely related to the number of yogurt packages with health-enhancing features chosen from the virtual shelf. Also, respondents who read the nutrition label and those with more knowledge regarding leading functional yogurt brands, selected a higher number of functional yogurts from the virtual shelf compared, especially among women.

The results indicate that body image dissatisfaction is inversely related to the number of yogurt packages with health-enhancing features chosen from the virtual shelf. Also, respondents who read the nutrition label and those with more knowledge regarding leading health-enhancing yogurt brands selected a higher number of health-enhancing yogurts options from the virtual shelf compared to others, especially among women.

The relationship between body image dissatisfaction and health-enhancing food choices has not been investigated in the consumer science and marketing literature. Additionally, this is one of the few papers that use a virtual shelf as a data-collection method.

Geographical indication (GI) labels aim to improving farmers' and processors' income. This article studies how characteristics related to GI groups and their reputation (e.g. the producer group size, longevity and production decisions) are related to prices at the origin, final (consumption) prices and marketing margins.

The authors use 8 years of annual data for the Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) GI market encompassing 46 GI EVOOs. Estimated parameters characterizing the relationship between the GI's group features and prices (at origin and at consumption) are obtained via Three-Stage Least Squares (3SLS).

Results show that the number of GI operators is related to consumption prices, while is weakly related to prices at the origin. GIs' age is not associated with higher consumption prices, while origin prices are lower for older GIs compared to younger ones. Higher farmers' olive/oil conversion rate is associated with lower origin and consumption prices, whereas the extent of vertical integration is related to higher prices at the origin and a higher share of the marketing margins going to producers.

To the best of their knowledge, the authors offer the first empirical evidence on how structural characteristics and production decisions of a GI group relate to prices and marketing margins.

Beginning Farmer and Rancher programs are available for operators with ten years of experience or less on any farm. These programs support farmers who are starting operations, often without an initial asset allocation. However, some beginning farmers acquire operations that are already established, with substantial assets in place. The authors investigate whether a profitability gap exists between beginning farmers entering the industry ex novo and those operating a preexisting operation and if so, what factors contribute to the gap.

The authors utilize the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to determine what drives financial differences between first-generation beginning farmers, second-generation beginning farmers and established farmers using a unique farm-level panel dataset from 1997 to 2021.

Results indicate that first- and second-generation beginning farmers have similar operating profit margins, but first-generation beginning farmers have a statistically higher rate of return on assets than second-generation beginning farmers. Established farmers outperform second-generation beginning farmers on both the operating profit margin and rate of return on assets. These results suggest that economic viability for beginning farmers differs depending upon the initial status of their operation, suggesting that heterogenous policies may be more impactful in supporting various pathways to enter agriculture.

This analysis is the first to identify beginning farmers that enter the industry without an asset base and those that take over a principal operator role on an established farm through an assumed farm transition. The authors quantify differences in financial performance using detailed accrual-based financial data that tracks farms over time in one dataset.

Improving access to healthy foods is currently on the European Union health policy agenda, as a means to mitigate obesity. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between access to food stores and adult BMI in Italy, accounting also for the synergic role of individuals’ eating habits.

To study the relationship between access to different food outlets, eating habits, and adult BMI in Italy, the authors combine three years of individual-level data with region-level food stores’ density measures and account for store location endogeneity using a Generalized Method of Moment estimator.

While large stores and specialty fruit and vegetable stores show a BMI decreasing effect, local/convenience stores show little to no effect on adult BMI. The effect of access on adult BMI varies conditionally on dietary habits, since access to food outlets and healthy eating can have a synergic impact on reducing Italian adults’ BMI.

The authors highlight how, the effectiveness of policies aimed to curb obesity may vary according with the food environment consumers live in as well as on individuals’ eating habits.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Chinese immigrant businesses in Australia were able to shift from low return start-up businesses and move to more competitive business models targeting mainstream clientele. The research aims to identify the factors enabling a break-out strategy for these entrepreneurs and whether a horizontal or vertical break-out was achieved.

A qualitative research method with in-depth interviews is employed. Interviews were conducted with 55 Chinese immigrant business owners in Sydney and Canberra.

The analysis found that a break-out strategy depended on a range of business activities, including innovation, marketing, networking and personnel strategies. Importantly, the current research found that these resources have varying degrees of importance in the different stages of the transition to the new business model. Accumulating sufficient financial capital was a fundamental enabler for a break-out strategy, followed by the capacity to learn and benefit from the experience of social networks.

The current research highlights the importance of financial capital and capacity to benefit from social networks as fundamental factors in enabling a break-out strategy. The benefit of the qualitative approach in obtaining rich data needs to be offset by potential limitations on generalisability. Future research could incorporate comparison between different size businesses as well as analysing factors underpinning a failure to successfully implement a break-out.

The findings indicate that business support groups and policymakers could review access to financial capital for entrepreneurs seeking break-outs, consider improving opportunities for developing capacity to utilise heterogeneous social networks, and consider pathways for improving skills acquisition amongst immigrant entrepreneurs.

This paper contributes to the research literature on break-out strategies used by immigrant entrepreneurs by analysing, in detail, the transition steps undertaken by ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in the shift to more competitive business models.