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Chinese consumers have increased their consumption of grape products in recent years due to recognition of the nutritional value of grapes. At the same time, consumers are paying more attention to food safety because of the occasional occurrence of food safety scares. Based on a survey of consumers in Zhejiang, China, this paper aims to understand and provide information on consumers' perceptions of quality and safety for grape products, purchasing behavior, and willingness to pay (WTP) for grape products.

This paper presents the results of empirical research. The survey method was a direct (face‐to‐face) interview based on a standardized questionnaire. Consumers' perceptions of the quality and safety of grape products were examined, together with consumers' demographic characteristics.

The results indicate that quality and safety, rather than price, are considered the most important factors that affect consumers' purchasing decisions for grape products. Consumer's educational level, the average price of grapes and the perception of safety are the main factors that determine consumers' WTP for grape products. As price increases, the consumer's WTP for safe and high quality grapes decreases.

This research provides a chance to understand consumers' demand and WTP for the quality and safety of grape products in Zhejiang, China. Further understanding was gained regarding factors affecting consumers judging grape products, which in turn may influence their purchase decisions. The results also could guide grape growers to supply products that better meet consumers' needs. It is proposed that the Chinese government pay more attention to taking measures to improve the quality and safety of grape products.

The paper aims to understand consumers' perception and cognition toward table grapes, which focuses on the most important attributes, consumption consequences and personal values of grape consumption and the relations among them.

The study related grape consumption with consumers based on Means-end chain analysis. The data were gathered with both laddering interviews (n=37) and questionnaire survey returned by 843 individuals in 31 provinces of China. The data were firstly processed by SPSS software and descriptive statistics was adopted to evaluate consumers' awareness. Furthermore, MECanalyst software was opted for, to construct the hierarchical relations of table grape consumption.

The findings are that consumers consume grapes based on their functional cognition and sensory perception. The quality-orientated characters are deemed to be the most important grape attributes, healthy and practical function are the main expected benefits and desired values in table grape consumption.

The findings can provide some implications to producers, administers and operators in the grape industry and inspire them to design products that will better satisfy consumers. Stakeholders in grape industries should take measures to inform consumers of grape benefits so as to increase grape consumption and expand the market.

The paper fulfils the combinations of laddering interview and structured questionnaire to conduct the large-scale samples survey about consumers' perception based on MEC analysis. Findings from this study reinforce the importance of research into the relationship between products and consumers.

This study aimed at the addition of grape residue flours in beef meatballs to evaluate their behavior on physic-chemical and sensory properties. Furthermore, it is intended to discuss the importance of the substitution of synthetic additives with natural ones, the enhancement of consumers' diets and the prevention of inappropriate waste disposal.

The grapes' residues were collected from wine production and transformed into flour. Their proximal chemical composition and antioxidant activities were analyzed. Then, meatballs were formulated with 0 (control), 3.5 and 7% grape flours. Lipid oxidation analyzes were performed on raw and thermally processed meatballs. Triangle and ranking sensory tests were performed to assess the consumer's perception of product appearance and flavor and the consumer's preference, respectively.

Bordeaux and Trebbiano grape flours were rich in dietary fibers, composed of 44.2 and 55.6% fibers, respectively. They showed a high antioxidant activity, in which Trebbiano was high than Bordeaux. The addition of grape flours reduced the lipid oxidation of meatballs by close to 50% than the control sample. Differences in the appearance and flavor of some meatballs were identified by the panelists; however, the flavor's change did not displease them.

The grape residue is rich in phenolic compounds, natural dyes and dietary fibers. Its addition as a functional ingredient in meatballs reduces the addition of synthetic additives, adds fiber to the consumer's diet and prevents inappropriate waste disposal.

There are many factors which may influence the ability of wineries to build and maintain long‐term relationships (LTR) with their suppliers of grapes. The aim of this paper is to identify the most important factors which enhance LTR between Australian wineries and grape growers.

A qualitative in‐depth interview technique was employed with 13 Australian grape growers.

The relational dimensions of communication, goal compatibility and use of power were found to influence the relationship quality dimensions of trust and satisfaction, which are also linked to the level of commitment and hence long‐term relationship.

The Australian wine industry is currently suffering economic instability which has resulted in the demise of some relationships between grape growers and winemakers. However, economic misfortunes will no doubt change and inefficiencies will result if LTR are not maintained. These inefficiencies could prove detrimental as the Australian wine industry strives to produce regionally branded and higher quality wine products which are both grape grower derived element. Furthermore, issues related to communication frequency and reduction in trust have implications for communication strategies which may result in the reduction of winery grower liaison staff.

This paper offers a grape/grower‐winery perspective on buyer‐seller relationships. It moderates the theory on communication and its effect on trust and commitment. Furthermore it posits the issue of buyer size on relational dimension and outcomes, which has had little attention in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and identify Chinese consumers’ behavior and preference characters toward table grapes, especially to explore the variance of consumption preference in recent five years.

Two representative China-wide questionnaire surveys were conducted by face-to-face and online questionnaire survey, respectively, in 2009 and 2014. Comparative study was adopted to dig the changes of consumers’ preferences and habits. ANOVA was adopted to explore the statistically difference among consumers’ behavior and preferences.

The results indicate that Chinese consumers are rational-motivation-driven grape consumers, they prefer to sweet taste, seedless and medium priced grapes. Safety and quality characters (clean appearance, freshness and taste) were ranked as the most important grape attributes. As a whole, it was found that consumers are more quality-focussed and safety-conscious five years later, so some variances was showed in their purchase habits and preferences, such as the choice of purchase place, attitude to special grapes and willingness to pay to safe and genetically modified grapes.

This research not only indicates some stable preferences of Chinese consumers toward table grape, but also finds out some significant changes in consumers’ behavior before and after five years based on a comparative study in 2009 and 2014.

Muscadines grapes, the fruit of a vine native to the South East of the USA have been studied extensively, including their alleged beneficial health properties. To date, however, very little is known about the business side of muscadine growing. For instance, very limited information exists on whether wineries growing muscadines are currently processing their grapes into other value‐added products. The present study seeks to explore these aspects from winery operators' points‐of‐view.

Telephone interviews, coupled with two face‐to‐face on‐site interviews were conducted among 31 winery owners located in different states in the South East of the USA.

Overall, winery operators acknowledge the potential for the diversification and development of muscadine value‐added products, including juice, jellies, fortified wines or those for pharmaceutical purposes. However, the limited supply of muscadine grapes or muscadine juice to satisfy demand for value‐added products is an area of concern that several muscadine growers acknowledged. Also of concern are laws and regulations that are preventing winery operators from capitalizing on some muscadine products with alcohol content.

The low number of participants in comparison with the much larger number of existing muscadine wineries limits the generalisability of the findings.

With potentially greater demand for muscadine‐related products in the future, industry support and the development of new initiatives are needed to facilitate the process of value‐added muscadine product development for the benefit of operators, the industry and consumers.

The study focuses on the business‐side of muscadine production, an area that to a great extent has been neglected in contemporary research.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of ultrasound (US) treatment on the postharvest of “Isabella” grapes and the consistency of the obtained results regarding the composition of anthocyanins in grape juice over three successive harvest years using a combination of analytical techniques.

Juices produced from “Isabella” grapes sonicated for different durations (3, 5, 7 and 10 min) were analysed. The grapes were harvested and sonicated in 2013, 2014 and 2015, and each treated sample was stored for 1, 3 and 5 days in order to verify the time necessary for the development of the US response. The juices were analysed through physicochemical analysis (total monomeric anthocyanins). The anthocyanin profiles were quantified and identified using high performance liquid chromatography coupled to photodiode array and mass spectrometry detectors (HPLC-PDA-MSn).

The results demonstrated the potential of US in improving the quality of grape juice. In all three harvests, it was observed that the treatments were effective in increasing the concentration of anthocyanins. For the 2013 harvest, the application of US for 5 min led to a 103% increase in juice pigments. However, the US response profile varied among the three harvests, indicating that the US effect was influenced by the ripening conditions of the fruit. In total, 33 anthocyanins were identified in the grape juice. For the first time, peonidin-3-p-coumaroyl glucoside-5-glucoside was identified in “Isabella” juice.

The results of this study validated US treatment as a simple and effective physical method that can be used as an alternative technology for improving the general quality of products such as juice by increasing the pigment concentrations that are linked to the colour and antioxidant potential of drinks. Moreover, the results demonstrate that US treatment may be less effective in the case of a sample with distinct phenolic maturation.

The article on European Wine Industy provides an analysis of the wine industry with particular focus on Europe, although more global trends are indicated. The focus is on the business aspect of the wine industry and how various segments of the market are addressed by different sectors of activities. Readers of this article may want to think about how the industry is going to evolve over the next decade and how the major players are going to defend their position. It also highlights how the power in the industry has moved from the producers to the retailers and when the brandholders are key players.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an optimized hybrid model based on artificial intelligence methods, use the method of time series forecasting, to deal with the price prediction issue of China’s table grape.

The approaches follows the framework of “decomposition and ensemble,” using ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) to optimize the conventional price forecasting methods, and, integrating the multiple linear regression and support vector machine to build a hybrid model which could be applied in solving price series predicting problems.

The proposed EEMD-ADD optimized hybrid model is validated to be considered satisfactory in a case of China’ grape price forecasting in terms of its statistical measures and prediction performance.

This study would resolve the difficulties in grape price forecasting and provides an adaptive strategy for other agricultural economic predicting problems as well.

The paper fills the vacancy of concerning researches, proposes an optimized hybrid model integrating both classical econometric and artificial intelligence models to forecast price using time series method.

While organization theories acknowledge the influence of specific assets on dependence and increasingly represent the latter as a structure of mutual dependence (dependence of A on B and dependence of B on A), there is, to the best of our knowledge, no empirical test concerning the impact of specific assets on a structure of dependence. Our chapter aims to fill this gap. It is all the more original in that it considers a case study where dependence changes sides according to the characteristics of the transaction. We examine the dependence between Chilean exporters and European importers when trading fresh produce. Such dependence originates with the need for just-in-time coordination and compliance with a compelling demand in a context of high price uncertainty.

Using a unique dataset from international trade in fresh produce between Chile and the rest of the world, we justify the use of a concentration sales ratio as a proxy for dependence and test the influence of a variety of specific assets on the side of dependence by using both categorical and dimensional approaches. Original findings show that certain transaction attributes have a strong influence on the side of dependence. In particular, the higher the frequency and the level of specific assets such as volume, niche varieties, and joint sales with other products, in the transaction, the greater the likelihood of a higher ratio of dependence for the importer rather than the exporter. Conversely, in the event of low levels of specific assets and less frequent operations, dependence tends to be greater on the side of the exporter.