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Over the last years, the olive oil produced in the Mediterranean countries has obtained growing success in international markets. Olive oil has benefited from the growing appetite of European and World consumers for products that are part of the so-called Mediterranean diet. For centuries, the olive crops were vital for communities that have occupied the territories bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Despite this long historical drive, this chapter analyses changes that took place since the Second World War. It is recognized that in the decades that followed the end of the war the transformation of western agriculture and rural societies together with commercial and cultural transnational connections have accelerated. Even in peripheral areas, such as Portugal, different processes of globalization have developed, making it necessary to identify the mechanisms that have established the connections to distant territories. Focused on the Portuguese case, this chapter examines how olive oil has contributed to inserting this peripheral territory in the global trade network. A path analysis of this crop is used as a lens to observe how various factors (political, ecological, technical, commercial, social and institutional) have been combined to inhibit or stimulate the inclusion of these rural territories in the dynamics of globalization.

Since the dawn of the civilizations that olive has been playing a critical role on both the society and the economy. Indeed, one can argue that olive and olive oil were as critical as they shaped a form of culture, a seminal pillar that supported the Mediterranean civilizations and that has since then spread worldwide, influencing others. As waves and tides, the use of olive and olive oil has certainly met low points, to the extent that its use even became to be considered old fashioned more recently, when the traditional Mediterranean food and culture started to be jeopardized by very different modern ways of living. Nevertheless, despite defying challenging conditions, stubbornly as always, the Mediterranean diet not only continues to prevail, but keeps granting the admiration of diverse strands of the society and science, being notoriously evident the set of recent research that points to its health benefits, having olive oil as the cornerstone, a vegetable fat, considered to be highly healthy, as it enhances the control of important health indicators, such as the bad cholesterol, serving for nutritional and therapeutic uses, and preventing the occurrence of a number of diseases, including cardiovascular problems and some forms of cancer.

Taking into consideration this framework, the research presented in this book is focused on the examination of the main trends on olive and olive oil in the Iberian Peninsula, from production to retail and consumption, by analyzing several data sets covering recent decades. In terms of findings for more recent years, it was possible to conclude that despite the increasing recognition of the benefits of olive and olive oil by the society, and despite the increase in olive production, the consumption of olive oil has been decreasing internally, being replaced by increases in exports. This is most probably due to the economic conditions that have deteriorated due to the 2008’s financial crisis, which, together with an increase in olive oil prices, has prevented a considerable portion of the population to have financial conditions to access to the consumption of such an important component of the Mediterranean diet.

Food fraud has vexed the food industry throughout history. Today, it is still a present and multidimensional problem affecting all parts of the food industry. Food fraud encompasses adulteration, counterfeit, diversion of products outside of intended markets, over-run, simulation, tampering, theft, misrepresentation or mislabelling, malicious poisoning, bioterrorism or sabotage. It is difficult to detect and trace the source of unintentional contamination and related food safety concerns and even more difficult to detect instances of product fraud. The most common product categories that are associated with food fraud are olive oil, milk and milk-based products, fish and seafood, wine, tea, honey and organic foods. On the other hand, knowledge on what influences the occurrence of fraud in food supply chain is limited. The main research aim in this chapter is to determine key factors which influence the occurrence of food fraud within the organic supply chain, and how these factors differ between various organic marketing channel members. We focus on the application of qualitative methods for detecting key food fraud aspects including broad practical areas, such as opportunities and motivations to commit fraud, as well as the presence or lack of suitable food fraud control measures. These three key aspects are assessed to identify the perceived fraud vulnerability of the organic supply chain. The research is conducted with special attention to the context of the transition economies, since these markets require a new, comprehensive strategic approach to preventing and detecting food fraud and adulteration. The entire analysis is conducted on the Serbian market.

This chapter presents an overview of the ‘big’ data of Mediterranean agriculture, with a special focus on the four EU countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece), in order to provide a backdrop for the rest of cases analysed in the volume. In this regard, two thesis are discussed: the assumption that farming systems in the South have not followed the process of ‘productivist modernisation’ characterising post-war Northern European agricultural change, and that, precisely due to this reason, most holdings and regions from the South would have more possibilities to adapt to new approaches of multifunctional rural development.Thus, the chapter tackles both the static and dynamic structural traits of Southern agricultures and their differences with the North, as well as several aspects of the organisation of farming in the Mediterranean and other key components of productivist modernisation: farm intensification and specialisation. Later, the diffusion of multifunctional dynamics is addressed, in order to introduce some reflections about their meaning and scope in the Mediterranean regions. The chapter ends with a straightforward typology of Southern farming systems and a concluding section, which goes back to discuss the two initial theses.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to examine the connection between actual variety (the number of stock-keeping units (SKUs)) and amount of useable variety that the consumer perceives. The optimal combination for a retailer is to offer an assortment that maximizes the perceived assortment variety while minimizing the perceived inter-item complexity. Both measures are a function of the actual variety offered in an assortment but other factors such as attribute structure of the individual items, assortment organization, and individual differences can alter the way the actual variety is perceived.Design/methodology/approach – The main methodology used in the chapter is a comprehensive, critical literature review of the empirical research on the topic.Findings – We find that while assortments with a large number of SKUs are desirable for attracting consumers to the category, too large assortments can result in consumer frustration and confusion. On the other hand, when assortments are small, the perceived variety or attention to the category may be limited.Value/originality – Our review shows ways a retailer can adapt to these challenges. First, we show that assortments are viewed in stages. In the first stage, high perceptions of variety are beneficial. When assortments are small, increasing perceived variety can be accomplished by increasing the number of subcategories within the assortment, adding in packaging cues, or using other emotional affective descriptors to further define options within the assortment. In the second or choice stage, too much variety can increase perceived complexity. Perceived complexity at this stage can be reduced by simplifying the complexity of the individual items within the assortment by increasing alignability of attributes, using a simplifying external organizational structure for the assortment, or helping consumers learn their preference.

The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the management of the rural tourist experience in Cyprus. In doing so, it specifically attempts to examine rural tourists’ experiences in relation to travel motives and activities performed in rural areas in Cyprus, explore overall satisfaction with the rural tourist experience with regard to several physical, social, and symbolic attributes derived from the literature review and elicit recommendations that can improve the tourist experience in rural areas.

An exploratory research approach was utilized, whereby 70 open-ended casual interviews were conducted with domestic and international tourists visiting rural areas in Cyprus.

Main findings derived from this study include the realization that the rural tourism experience is fragmented and largely shaped by travel motives, regional characteristics, support services, and service provision.

A refined segmentation strategy is proposed as well as the development of synergistic, innovative linkages among rural tourism stakeholders and across sectors in the industry, with thematic clusters representing a favorable proposed strategy.

Although the study is centered on a single case, theoretical and practical implications may be derived with regard to the demand aspects of rural tourist experiences. In turn, such insights may be transferrable to other rural destination contexts.

Rational use of the information available to companies is one of the strategic concerns for both family businesses and non-family businesses. The aim is to make the best use of the information resulting from data analysis in order to gain strategic advantage and to be more competitive as a company in all its functional areas. Experience indicates that emotions play an important role, especially in family businesses. Many maturation models exist to analyze decision-making processes (DMPs), but none from the perspective of family business cognition. The authors start from their own “Circumplex Hierarchical Representation of Organisation Maturity Assessment” (CHROMA) model (Parra, Tort-Martorell, Ruiz-Viñals, & Alvarez-Gomez, 2017), which was created to support decision processes in family businesses. This model was proven successful in the analysis of DMPs in large family businesses. The model was simplified as CHROMA-SHADE (Parra, Tort-Martorell, Ruiz-Viñals, & Alvarez-Gomez, 2019), more adequate for the analysis of small and medium-sized family businesses. Despite being a good DMP analysis instrument, intangible aspects such as family values and emotions have not yet been included. Both entrepreneurial emotions and entrepreneurial cognition must be taken into account when analyzing the DMP of the family business. In this chapter, the authors wish to explore attributes that can be introduced into a new dimension in the CHROMA model in order to make it more specific in the analysis of DMPs of family businesses regardless of size. The resulting FAMILY-CHROMA model represents a specific maturation model to evaluate DMPs based on the use of business information of family businesses.

Being the basic need of humans, but also an attractive element of the tourist offer, gastronomy is related to the attractiveness of a destination, and Balkan gastronomy is considered to be one of the most positive aspects of the tourist image of the region. This study aims to investigate the locals' perception of gastronomic specificity of ‘Balkan food’ and national (local) food as well. Furthermore, the study investigated how ‘Balkan food’ is perceived in terms of its tourist potential, uniqueness, quality, nutrition and its general role in the creation of a joint ‘Balkan’ tourist brand. The methodology included a historical approach and a survey which involved110 respondents. Out of 21 traditional dishes identified in the official tourist promotional activities of selected countries and a review of the relevant literature, the following are identified as regional ‘Balkan’ dishes: ‘pečenje’, ‘musaka’, ‘ćevapi’ and ‘sarma’. The following are identified as national dishes: ‘pastrmajlija’, ‘sogan dolma’, ‘raštan’, ‘pašticada’, ‘burek’ and ‘svadbarski kupus’. The results indicated that some nations have specific knowledge of certain dishes being considered national and regionally present, while other nations show a lack of knowledge of food origin and regional presence in identified countries. Furthermore, the results showed that different dimensions of Balkan cuisine significantly contribute to the tourist potential of the region, while the contribution of its nutritive characteristics is perceived as less important. Results showed that ‘Balkan food’ is considered to be important for the improvement of the ‘Balkans'’ image and promotion, as well as important for the creation of the regional tourism brand.

The importance of gastronomy for tourism development has been broadly recognised in academic literature and practice, as it represents an essential element of tourism services and has a significant impact on customer satisfaction. Gastronomy in the Western Balkans has attracted increasing attention from tourism and hospitality researchers since the fall of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. As a relatively new topic in academic literature, it requires frequent and critical monitoring that can shed light on current research and practice and make needed adjustments in terms of future development. However, to date, there have been few systematic reviews of this body of work. As such, this study aims to fill this void by conducting a qualitative analysis of the development of gastronomy in the Republic of Slovenia. Particular attention has been devoted to the presentation of gastronomic heritage, tourism and policies implemented by Slovenian authorities in order to strategically develop the national gastronomic identity. Based on a literature review and interviews with experts from academia and practice, the findings reveal that for the successful development of gastronomy, a strategic approach to gastronomy and tourism development is needed. The development of gastronomy is also vital for the improvement of tourism and gastronomic services at the regional, local and entrepreneurial levels. The results of this study will be of interest to policymakers, researchers and practitioners. This research has also raised many questions requiring further investigation. It is suggested that future longitudinal studies include interviews with different groups of stakeholders and empirically investigate the different perspectives of gastronomy development.