Search results

The authors provide primary data on salt iodisation of processed foods in Germany, analyse reasons for food processors' use or non-use of iodisation and derive implications for public health.

Statistical evidence is presented on the use of iodised salt in bread and bakery products, meat and meat products and dairy products in the German grocery-retailing sector. Information is based on mobile data collection in a representative sample of grocery stores in four German cities. These data are analysed with logistic regression models. Additionally, an online survey of bakers and butchers is utilised to record and to explain the use of iodised salt in specialised food stores.

Salt was added in 69.3% of the 29,910 foods analysed in the market study. When salt was added, iodised salt was used in only 28.5% of the cases. According to the online survey, only 44% of the bakers and butchers used iodised salt, and the user share declined over time. Incomplete information from processors on the role of iodised salt for public health is contributing to the low and declining user share.

The authors combine different market research methods and elaborate that the recommendation by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture – “If salt, then iodised salt” – is implemented to a very limited extent by the food industry and specialised food stores. From the behaviour of food processors and their perceptions of salt iodisation, the authors gain new insights for policy and public health.

Since fairtrade labels are upcoming market instruments, the purpose of this paper is to identify and quantify consumers’ willingness to pay for fairtrade coffee products and tea. Thereby, this paper contributes to the discussion in favour of a non-private regulation of ethical food labels (FLs). Moreover, the paper provides information about the consumer behaviour of the German buying public.

The empirical analysis is based on homescan panel data of 13,000 representative German households, which includes actual purchase data of ground coffee, single-serve coffee, espresso, and tea for a five-year sample period from 2004 to 2008. As a methodological approach, the hedonic technique is used to model coffee and tea prices as a function of time, store, and product characteristics.

Regarding the variables of interest branding a product leads to an average price premium of 22.1 per cent, while the organic FL achieves an average price premium of 34.3 per cent. The highest average price premium of 43.1 per cent is ceteris paribus paid for fairtrade labels. In the case of fairtrade labels, tea products earn the highest implicit prices with 74.0 per cent, followed by ground coffee (54.9 per cent), espresso (24.7 per cent), and single-serve coffee (18.9 per cent).

The present analysis supplements the discussions around the willingness to pay for fairtrade certified products by the German buying public, a product differentiation between coffee products and the introduction of labelled tea. As the data set includes daily purchases, it allows analysis of consumer behaviour on a disaggregated level, given detailed information on prices, stores, origins, FLs, and so on.

This paper has two purposes. The first is to provide a critical evaluation of current methods of measuring monetary versus non-monetary pro-poor growth. The second is to propose an alternative method based on the fuzzy logic aggregation approach, which allows including both monetary and non-monetary indicators simultaneously for measuring the “global pro-poor growth”.

The methodology that we propose is based on the fuzzy logic approach to aggregate both monetary and non-monetary indicators simultaneously and thus to calculate the “Global Welfare Index”. This index will be considered as the main global wellbeing indicator based on which a “Global Growth Incidence Curve” is constructed to analyze the pro-poor growth. 10; Also, an application of the main previous procedures for measuring monetary vs non-monetary pro-poor growth is presented to compare their results and to discuss their advantages and limitations.

Empirical validation using Tunisian data reveals that on one hand, results of the pro-poor growth analysis are very sensitive to the used measurement method and may lead to different conclusions. On the other hand, our alternative procedure may provide a more appropriate analysis of pro-poor growth given that it takes into consideration the multidimensional aspect of poverty while remaining faithful to the fundamental principle of pro-poor growth measurement.

The proposed method for constructing the “Global Growth Incidence Curve” is original given that it presents a new procedure to take into account both monetary and non-monetary indicators simultaneously, which allows having a more global view of the phenomenon. Also, the comparative study of the different proposed methods in the literature of measuring pro-poor growth is useful to identify their limitations and advantages.