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This study estimates a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) that incorporates the linkages among the agriculture, industry, construction, transport, storage and communication and service sectors for Bangladesh by using historical data from 1979 to 2009. Two cointegrating vectors confirm that all the different sectors moved together over the sample period, and therefore that their growth rates are interdependent. The long-run relationships of the industrial, construction, transport, storage and communication and service sectors to the agricultural sector were established, and the results show that the industrial and construction sectors contribute positively to the agricultural sector, the growing service sector contributes negatively and the transport, storage and communication sector shows mixed results. In addition, weak exogeneity for the agricultural sector is rejected and this underlines the fact that the agricultural sector should be considered by policymakers in any analysis of inter sector growth.

This paper seeks to report the perceptions of costs and benefits of the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) implementation, according to the level of HACCP implementation and operation, for the Greek food industry.

A questionnaire was developed to identify the costs and benefits of HACCP implementation. Data were collected among 91 companies located in northern Greece. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS – Release 12.0.0, September 2003, for Windows) was used for the data analysis.

The results indicate that the major difficulties encountered during HACCP implementation and operation were associated with two factors: staff training and motivation and production flexibility. The reported benefits derived from HACCP implementation operation were ascribed to three factors: clientele benefits, product improvements, and improvements in production procedures. In addition, the survey revealed that there was a significant variation in the cost of implementing and operating HACCP between individual companies. Moreover, in most cases, both HACCP implementation and operation cost were inaccurately estimated by previous budgeting.

It is certain that a good understanding of the costs and benefits associated with the HACCP implementation and operation can be helpful to food businesses. The motivation of food businesses to implement and operate an HACCP system will reflect upon prior expectations of the costs and benefits involved.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the effect of quality assurance systems on business performance and subsequently, how a quality assurance system can be utilized as a determinant factor of a firm's marketing strategy, especially for the organic food sector.

Based on literature and the quality theory, the following subjects are examined: the types of goods according to their quality attributes, the benefits of participating in a quality award procedure, how a quality assurance system affect on firms' performance, and finally, the factors that determine consumers' willingness to pay a price premium for organic products.

The findings showed that, better quality conformance is associated with sales growth and better sales margins. Moreover, the most important benefit of a quality certification is its ability to increase market share and provide access to new market. In addition, the key to define quality is consumers and a company's internal definition of quality must reflect consumers' requirements. Finally, factors such as socio‐demographic characteristics, the perceived quality and risks have been found to be important determinants of consumers' willingness to pay a price premium to buy organic food products.

This study presents an outline of how a quality assurance system can be used to provide not only consistent product quality but also different elements that can be used to determine a firm's marketing strategy. The findings can help all the involved bodies to avoid the impediments and develop an appropriate marketing strategy for the effective promotion of certified organic food products.

Due to the rising number of product, service, and shopping possibilities available to consumers, food shopping has become increasingly more complex. As a result, consumers can become confused, and this state of confusion may influence their purchase behaviour (e.g. may cause them to not buy a product) and the personal needs they have in a shopping environment (e.g. certification to signal product quality, salesperson consultation for assistance in decision making, or governmental regulation). However, trust can reduce complexity, and may thereby moderate the influence of consumer confusion for negative outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to identify outcomes of consumer confusion and to investigate the moderating role of broader-scope trust on the negative outcomes of this confusion.

A conceptual model was developed to study potential negative outcomes of consumer confusion. In order to assess consumer confusion and the degree of negative outcomes, a telephone survey method for the questionnaire was applied, querying 516 participants who regularly bought food products.

The results clearly suggest that consumer confusion evokes various negative outcomes that are of relevance for food retailing. The intensity of the influence of consumer confusion on several of those negative outcomes could be decreased by broader-scope trust. Further, an interaction effect linked to gender was observed.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first international journal publication on the moderating role of trust on the outcomes of consumer confusion.