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In July 2010, a mandatory European Union (EU) logo for organic food was introduced to strengthen the organic sector by making the identification of organic products easier for consumers. The present study aims to analyse how consumers in five EU countries view a mandatory EU logo for organic food and to give recommendations for agrarian decision makers and market actors in the organic sector.

The study is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to provide a comprehensive picture of consumer views. Focus group discussions were conducted with consumers in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the UK. A subsequent survey with 2,042 participants was carried out to quantify consumer views on key issues and analyse country differences. Finally, the results of the qualitative and quantitative study were brought together.

While the introduction of a mandatory EU logo for organic food was generally welcomed in all countries, trust in the underlying production standards and the inspection system was not very pronounced (except in Italy). The authors conclude that the introduction of the new EU logo should be supported by communication campaigns to make clear what the new logo stands for and remove unfounded consumer concerns regarding the downscaling of standards and the trustworthiness of the inspection system.

To the authors' knowledge, no previous studies exist on consumer views on a mandatory EU logo for organic food. The recommendations drawn from their findings can help to reach the objectives connected with the introduction of the mandatory EU logo.

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether UK consumers recognise and trust organic certification logos and whether the presence of these logos on a product increases consumer willingness to pay for that product.

To ascertain the reaction of UK consumers to organic certification logos commonly used in the UK, this study makes use of three methods: focus groups, a consumer survey and a willingness to pay experiment (choice experiment).

These three approaches reveal that UK consumers associate certain benefits with organic foods but are generally unaware of how the industry is regulated. With regards to trust of the logo, the standards they think underlie the logo and the inspection system that they think is associated with the logo, UK consumers rate the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers logos more highly than the EU logo or products labelled with just the word “organic”. They appear willing to pay a premium for the additional assurance that these two logos provide, suggesting that where they are recognised, certification logos are valued.

To the authors' knowledge, no previous studies exist on whether UK consumers recognise and trust different organic certification logos. These findings show that where such logos are recognised they can help to give some assurance to the UK consumer and this is reflected in a willingness to pay a premium for foods labelled with the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers certification logos, as opposed to no logo or the (less well known) EU logo.

During the months of May and June of 2002, interviews and surveys were conducted with over 30 high‐level private, public, academic and non‐profit sector leaders from around the world to discuss the development and impact of regional e‐commerce initiatives. Three pioneers in this arena were analyzed: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Asia‐Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the European Union (EU). The motivation, objectives, design, structure and implementation of their respective e‐commerce programs were explored, with an eye toward uncovering the visible and invisible challenges and opportunities. This paper presents a set of high‐level principles which guided and influenced these initiatives and that can serve as a reference for other organizations considering regional e‐commerce needs.

Investigate the behaviour and the habits of the consumers from central-southern Italy in relation to extra olive oil consumption, focussing on the impact of protected designation of origin (PDO) and EU–organic certification on purchase intention and quality perception.

A specific questionnaire was submitted to 160 consumers; a subsample of ten experts, ten semi-experts and ten habitual consumers of olive oil tested, through a blind test first and a normal one then, three Italian samples: an extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) without certification, an organic EVOO and a PDO EVOO, which were characterised also from a chemical-physical point of view. The answers provided during the tastings were statistically analysed and compared.

People interviewed prefer local olive oils; they are positively influenced by PDO/organic certification, while price is not a decisive factor on the purchasing choices. According to tasting panel results: experts gave consistent answers preferring organic olive oil, semi-experts are positively influenced by the PDO brand contrary to what they claimed; non-experts would buy EVOO, although they are positively influenced by the PDO brand and negatively by the organic certification.

Only knowledge and experience can aid consumers make consistent and aware choices. Information campaigns could help them to distinguish products, correctly identify food attributes and overcome their scepticism towards quality of organic products.

Few works investigated the impact of quality and sustainability labelling on perception of olive oils, valuing the consistency between answers provided before and after sensory assessments.

Maintaining food safety techniques in the supply chain management require special food safety labelling techniques during distribution in the retail food industry. The food products have to be of good quality and labelling inbound, manufacturing, and outbound in the supply chain contributes to this aim. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how food safety labelling is managed in Vietnam’s retail food industry with a special focus on food in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Photography was used in an observational study conducted among five separate retail market chains all located in this city. In which ways are the applications of the developed food safety labelling techniques among three separate retail food markets similar and dissimilar being accounted for? The results show that the packaging and labelling in Big C, Aeon Citimart, and Giant using the symbols of food safety build trust for their customers. The Big C indicates guidelines for VietGAP and green labelling. Aeon Citimart indicates the name of the good, expiration date and instructions for use as well as guidelines for the government factor (VietGAP) to the food safety practices in the Vietnamese food retail sector.

With the introduction of the mandatory European Union (EU) organic logo for all organic food products in 2010, the European Commission aimed at fostering the internal organic food market. This needs consumers’ knowledge of the logo. According to earlier research consumers’ knowledge of the EU organic logo is low. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to elicit consumers’ attitudes towards organic certification and labelling and to develop recommendations on how to improve consumers’ knowledge of the EU organic logo.

By means of an online survey with 3,000 participants in six European countries, knowledge of the logo and attitudes towards organic farming and European labelling, as well as organic food purchase behaviour and socio-demographic indicators were elicited. Factor and cluster analysis based on several statements on the test persons’ attitudes towards organic farming and corresponding EU legislation were conducted in order to segment consumers.

The results indicate that knowledge of the logo is low. Only about 15 per cent of all respondents knew its meaning. Four clusters of consumers could be identified: “Committed organics”, “Pragmatic organics”, “Organic sceptics” and Organic disinterested’. With reference to the EU organic legislation’s aim of promoting the organic market, particularly “Organic sceptics” should be addressed by emphasising the trustworthiness of the organic certification and labelling system.

Segmenting consumers according to their attitude towards organic farming, its labelling and certification allows for targeted and efficient communication and organic market development.

Protected designation of origin (PDO) and protected geographical indication (PGI) products form the core of the European Union (EU) quality food policy. Low and fragmented logo recognition perils the entire plan. This work aims to provide a “classification” of European consumers as regards logo awareness based on generic demographic and socio-economic characteristics and to test hypotheses relating PDO awareness with the purchasing behaviour of consumers.

The work utilises publicly available pan-European databases collected from Eurobarometer in four rolling surveys from 2012 to 2017. The statistical analysis exploits the spatially nested nature of the data.

The “logo aware” consumer is distinctively different from the average representative European consumer. A range of demographic, human capital and socio-economic characteristics and behavioural and attitudinal traits differentiate the consumers who are aware of the logo. Country and region effects are vital.

Benefits of large and representative samples accrue by utilising available Eurobarometer surveys. This comes at a cost. The individual researcher has no control over the questions included in the questionnaire.

Consumer classification forms the basis of awareness-raising strategies. It reveals the numerous segments of aware and non-aware consumers and opens a discussion about tools and methods to reach out to the European consumer.

This analysis holds an exact pan-European perspective and incorporates consumers' characteristics, behaviour, attitudes and country and region effects.

Cluster management organizations (CMOs) have emerged over the past few decades as intermediaries that support the competitiveness of place-based clusters of economic activity. Despite their economic origins, policymakers are now starting to experiment with a broader use for cluster policies that seeks to leverage CMOs to tackle societal challenges in approaches aligned with the concept of creating shared value (CSV). However, there remains a void in conceptual understanding around the specific roles that CMOs might play in overcoming the barriers faced by their members for CSV, which this paper aims to address. Bridging this gap presents an opportunity for cluster practitioners and policymakers in a context in which environmental and social sustainability are at the top of policy agendas.

Based on analysis of literature around collaborative approaches to CSV for mitigating transaction costs, the authors define the contours of a new conceptual framework for the roles that CMOs can play in fostering collective CSV. The authors illustrate how the different components of the framework are reflected in emerging cluster practice in the context of a new wave of European cluster-based projects tackling CSV elements.

The resulting framework reconciles the concepts of clusters and CSV by explicitly positioning CMOs as intermediaries for facilitating the CSV strategies of their members. CMOs embrace emergent strategy making that targets (tangible and intangible) collective CSV capabilities and addresses collective CSV challenges. Collective CSV can provide a theoretical anchor guiding future cluster policies to fully leverage the transformative potential of CMOs. This conceptual framework opens a promising empirical research agenda, particularly around evaluating the plurality of impacts of CMOs.

By stressing the social impact of CMOs alongside their well-understood economic impacts, and by enabling a categorization of functions that can support the monitoring of CMO activities toward collective CSV strategies, the framework provides a novel basis for inspiring further empirical research into the evidencing of these roles.

Limiting the use of antibiotics in food animals is a cornerstone of contemporary EU policy. Despite that marketing of antibiotics for growth promotion and nutrition has been banned since 2006, the use is still high and varied. This paper aims to investigate the forces behind the different usage patterns in Italy, with one of the EU’s most extensive use of antibiotics in animals, versus Sweden, with the union’s most restricted use, including how these usage patterns are related to EU and national policies.

The industrial network approach/the 4R resources interaction model is adopted to investigate the major forces behind the different antibiotic usage patterns. Furthermore, the study relies on the notion of three main characteristics related to the use of a resource activated in several user settings (Håkansson and Waluszewski, 2008, pp. 20–22). The paper investigates the Swedish and the Italian using settings, with a minimised, respectively, extensive usage of antibiotics. The study is exploratory in nature and based on qualitative data collected through a combination of primary and secondary sources.

The paper underlines the importance of integrating forces for policy to succeed in attempts to reduce the use of a particular resource. It reveals that Sweden’s radically reduced use was based on great awareness, close interactions between animal-based food producers and policy – and that integrating forces were supported by an era of state-protected food production, with promising ability to distribute the cost of change. The Italian characteristics hindering the integration of forces mounting for reduced use were restricted awareness, top-down business and policy interactions – and a great awareness about the difficulties of distributing the cost of change.

The study deals with the analysis of forces affecting the different usage of antibiotics within two EU settings. The investigation, based on the industrial network approach’s notion of connectivity of economic resources, that is, of exchange having a content and substance beyond discrete transactions, reveals how indirect related contextual forces, neglected by policy, have an important influence on the ability to achieve change, in this case of antibiotics usage patterns.

This paper's objective is to investigate consumers' and producers' expectations towards geographical indications (GIs) in a German context, where this certification scheme has not been widely used so far.

Data for the consumer side were obtained by a structured questionnaire. A total of 741 consumers were asked online with respect to their knowledge and expectations towards geographical indications in general and Hessian apple wine in particular. The collected data were analysed by an explorative factor analysis and a binary logit model. Additionally, data for the producer side were collected via an in‐depth interview with one major producer of Hessian apple wine.

The consumer side results indicate that Hessian consumers' awareness and knowledge about GIs is very limited. Moreover, it is found that the quality warranty dimension is not as important as the economic support dimension and perceived authenticity of the product. A hypothetical willingness to pay for protection is mainly driven by consumer perceptions and expectations towards the positive impacts of geographical indications on the local economy. The producer side results highlight that the most important motivation to apply for a protected G1 (PGI) is to secure the established reputation against misuse by competing producers in order to ensure the quality level of Hessian apple wine.

The findings indicate that a PGI is by no means a self‐runner. The positive impacts of this certification scheme have to be communicated to consumers in order to be successful.

Empirical evidence regarding consumers' knowledge and expectations towards geographical indications in a non‐Mediterranean context is limited. The present paper contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence for a German case study.