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The purpose of this paper is to focus on two aspects. First, to analyse the spread of labelled environmental certification in food products, considering both private labels and producer brands with reference to the Italian and German markets. Second, to outline how environmental certification can affect the vertical organisation of food supply chains.

The method used is based on an empirical analysis carried out in two sample cities: Milan for Italy and Bonn for Germany, examining ten and seven retailers, respectively, using the case studies approach, through an ad hoc questionnaire. The authors analysed two cases related to fruit and vegetables and ichthyic products, in order to assess the effect of the standards provided by the sustainability certification on the vertical organisation of the supply chains.

The certifications focus on three main areas: ichthyic products; tropical products; and fruits and vegetables. They are much more widespread on private label items, rather than on the industrial brands. The German market is more “sensitive” to sustainability issues than the Italian market. Environmental certification leads to a reorganisation of the supply chain relationships, determining a higher bilateral dependency among the supply chain agents, a reduction in product uncertainty, and an increased degree of vertical coordination.

The paper analyses, through a new perspective, the environmental issues of food products, quantifying the spread of labelled environmental certification and comparing Italy and Germany. The vertical reorganisation of the supply chains involved the adoption of production rules, connected to environmentally‐friendly practices, and the introduction of a new form of transaction governance.

This paper aims to develop a hierarchical typology of trust elements for business‐to‐business trade among European companies in the food sector.

The paper integrates desk research literature study and a qualitative survey of food industry companies. An extensive literature review about inter‐organizational trust lays a foundation for designing a draft typology based on previous studies, with special attention paid to the influence of culture. Fine‐tuning and validation of the typology is achieved through an exploratory field study based on 18 qualitative in‐depth interviews with key informants in five EU countries, involving practitioners from the fresh fruit and vegetable, grain, meat and olive supply chains.

A detailed typology of trust is developed. Although it is highly specific to the food industry, it is designed to be neutral to culture and sector, thus allowing the identification of differences in culture when dealing with trust building elements in different sectors in the food supply chain.

Since the buyer's perspective is adopted in this paper, further research is needed to validate the typology on the seller side. The typology developed here must also be tested in practice, for instance within a descriptive research quantitative study, aimed at quantifying the relative importance of the different trust elements.

The typology stimulates the consideration of cross‐cultural or cross‐sector differences in the salience of trust attributes and its construction process confirms that reputation management is an extremely important determinant of success or failure. It can serve as a checklist for any company that is interested in improving its relationships with suppliers or buyers.

The paper adds to the body of knowledge about inter‐organizational trust, providing researchers with a useful tool for conducting experimental research on trust creation mechanisms.

Trade promotions are manufacturer incentives directed to retailers rather than to consumers, aiming at influencing retailer's sales, prices and merchandising practices. Although they are a growing element in the promotional mix of food manufacturers worldwide, trade promotions often raise concerns about their impacts on performance and coordination in the food supply chain, which in turn affect retail food prices. This paper aims to measure the influence of market power on the outcomes of trade promotions negotiated between food manufacturers and supermarkets.

The paper employs Rangan's conceptual model to develop hypotheses about the links between three dimensions of market power (size, brand and institutional power) and trade promotion budgets and their allocation between discount‐ and performance‐based types. The paper employs trade promotion data collected from 36 supermarkets in the USA to statistically test these links.

The results suggest that brand, size, and institutional power of food manufacturers and retailers affect trade promotion budgets and their allocation among discount‐ and performance‐based types. Food manufacturers have relatively more control over their trade promotion budgets whereas retailers may have more influence on the allocation decisions.

The findings can help food manufacturers and retailers identify institutional, brand and size variables that may help them leverage trade promotion negotiations. The results are relevant to policymakers, in particular for the study of antitrust and performance issues in the food distribution system.

The purpose of the paper is to analyse the main dynamics of the Italian food system, focusing on the relationships between the inclination to innovate and a set of firm characteristics.

The empirical analysis includes two steps. In the first, principal component analysis is carried out in order to identify factors that can explain the features that differentiate Italian food firms. In the second phase the role of such factors on innovation behaviour is quantified by means of a logit model.

The empirical analysis showed that, in the Italian food sector, innovation adoption follows different patterns when product or process innovation is considered. In particular, the probability of introducing product innovation is influenced by the quality of human capital, the geographical context and, to a lesser extent, the age of the firm.

The research is restricted in so far as it only considers the Italian food sector. Because the data survey is representative only at the level of the manufacturing industry as a whole and excludes firms with fewer than ten employees, the analysis for the food sector can only be indicative.

This paper provides a useful source of knowledge on the innovative behaviour of Italian firms. This highlights the need to provide for diversified intervention strategies to stimulate and enforce innovation in the Italian food sector.

The research provides some initial insight into firm perspectives in the role of innovations to enhance firms’ market competitiveness.

This paper aims to examine the generic advertising program of the Florida processed orange industry.

A model of the world orange juice market is used to assess the presence and level of free riding by Brazilian orange growers on the Florida program.

Recent legal challenges have caused the program to be fully funded by Florida orange growers. The results suggest that elimination of the promotion program would negatively impact grower revenue in both Florida and Sao Paulo and this provides evidence that there is considerable free riding by import suppliers to the US orange juice market.

The paper uses a model of the world orange juice market to consider the effect of elimination of the Florida generic advertising program to promote orange juice consumption in the USA.

The purpose of the paper is to identify chain‐level, product‐, and country‐specific characteristics of chain governance structures in the traditional food sector in the European Union (EU).

The approach combined taxonomy compilation: selecting chain governance structures, Selecting determining variables and assigning values to them; and pilot testing: individual interviews with 54 companies across Belgium, Italy and Hungary representing cheese, beer, white pepper and meat chains. The number of participants is 54.

It was found that the chains varied largely in terms of their complexity. Besides chain‐level, product‐, and country‐specific differences, the retailers' size is a determining factor of the applied governance structure.

The research only considers traditional food chains.

The paper provides guidance for selecting an appropriate governance structure given the characteristics of the chain, the products or the country.

The paper compiles a taxonomy providing important insights to determining variables of the application of governance structures. Further, it analyzes chain‐level, product‐, and country‐specific differences.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the possible advantages of applying prediction markets to supply network management. Are the same encouraging results possible as in the election application of prediction markets?

This is a paper focused on the requirements and the possible results of the application based on the literature for supply network management and prediction markets. It discusses the potential of prediction markets to improve information management in supply networks.

The paper finds that prediction markets are a new instrument to collect the diverse information among the supply chain members, and to publish this information to the other members.

Prediction markets are able to improve the information basis for decision making in supply chains.

This paper shows the application of prediction markets in a supply network management case and the possibilities and limitations of prediction markets to collect, and publish information within the supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to assess direct and indirect damages of dairy processors and pig and poultry slaughterhouses in The Netherlands following the occurrence of a feed crisis.

Starting from a number of feed crisis scenarios the paper analyses processing industry damage parameters through a combination of sector data and individual company assessments. In case of confidential data, outcomes are presented as indices.

The paper finds that, in the most likely scenario, it is expected that a feed crisis affects 15 processors, i.e. 20 per cent of processing business in The Netherlands. Processors' direct damage is largely (>90 per cent) determined by the mixing of produce during various phases of processing. Indirect damage is on average perceived not to exceed direct damage.

The results are useful in current stakeholder debates on sharing damage burdens of feed crises across supply chain partners.

This paper extends currently available risk analyses of feed contaminations by eliciting damage beyond farm level.

The food processing industry, confronted with increased global competition and more stringent customer demands, is pressurized to improve the pace and quality of its innovation processes. This paper aims to find out what factors constitute the main drivers and barriers to innovation and to explore how far the food processing industry can rely on the principles of innovation management developed in high‐tech industries to improve its innovation performance.

The study is based on the investigation of nine multinational food processing companies with their headquarters and/or major operations in The Netherlands. For this study a research questionnaire was developed, based on theoretical insights derived from the industrial organization theory and the resource‐based view. In each company the research director, CTO, or CEO completed the questionnaire and was interviewed about different aspects of innovation management.

The food processing industry can indeed rely on the principles of innovation management. However, there is clear room for improvement. Especially the potential of “open innovation” with suppliers and buyers to leverage innovation resources and capabilities is underutilized. Interestingly, the uneven power distribution in the chain, especially the high pressure of buyers, acts as a strong driver for innovation. Seen in this light it is noteworthy that in most companies the communication from R&D to marketing needs further improvement to enhance customer orientation, one of the main drivers of innovation success.

This study is the first to investigate innovation management concepts related to success in the food processing industry.