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The purpose of this paper is to analyze how news about food‐related health risks affects consumers’ demands for safe food products.

By identifying structural breaks in an econometrically estimated demand model, news with permanent impact on demand is distinguished from news with temporary impact. The Danish demand for pasteurized versus shell eggs is used as an illustrative case.

Negative safety news about one product variety can provide significant stimulation to the demand for safe varieties. Severe negative news about the safety of shell eggs induces a permanent increase in the demand for pasteurized eggs, while more moderate negative news influences demand temporarily and to a lesser extent. There is, however, considerable variation in the response to food safety news across socio‐demographic groups of consumers.

The study has focused on the demand for raw eggs. Responses to food safety news may differ across foods. Furthermore, the study abstracts from possible cross‐effects of safety news concerning other foods.

The findings may be utilized for optimization of the timing and targeting of food safety information campaigns.

The paper combines information, food safety and econometric methods to analyze the cross‐impacts between negative food safety news and the demand for safe foods.

The Norwegian retail market for alcoholic beverages is controlled by a state monopoly. Wine and other alcoholic beverages above 4.75 per cent alcohol, can only be bought in government stores called The Wine Monopoly (Vinmonopolet in Norwegian) or consumed in hotels, restaurants, bars, pubs, or catering firms. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the Norwegian wine market and present some of the major opportunities and constraints facing foreign producers.

The objective of this article is twofold: first, to explain the role of the actors in the Norwegian wine market and second, to identify the market opportunities for Italian and other foreign producers. The organisation of the monopoly, the strategies wine producers may use to introduce new wines into the market, and the marketing levers that can be used to utilise the market opportunities are of special interest. The key informant techniques as well as official statistics are used.

Comparing the outcome of the authors' field research, done during the winter of 2010, with government statistics on wine consumption, it is clear that the competitive environment evolves daily. Consumers' tastes and perceptions play a crucial role in this dynamism.

There have not been many studies of the effects of the alcohol monopoly on the Norwegian market. Therefore, it is of particular interest to investigate the organisation of the Norwegian alcohol monopoly and how wine producers may successfully introduce new wines into this market. This paper makes a positive contribution to the literature in this field, giving some promotion strategies which could be achievable and could work in the Norwegian wine market.

In this chapter, we draw on health lifestyle, human capital, and health commodity theories to examine the effects of educational attainment on a wide range of individual dietary behaviors and dietary lifestyles.

Using data from the 2005-2006 iteration of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (n = 2,135), we employ negative binomial regression and binary logistic regression to model three dietary lifestyle indices and thirteen healthy dietary behaviors.

We find that having a college degree or higher is associated with seven of the thirteen healthy dietary behaviors, including greater attention to nutrition information (general nutrition, serving size, calories, and total fat) and consumption of vegetables, protein, and dairy products. For the most part, education is unrelated to the inspection of cholesterol and sodium information and consumption of fruits/grains/sweets, and daily caloric intake. We observe that having a college degree is associated with healthier dietary lifestyles, the contemporaneous practice of multiple healthy dietary behaviors (label checking and eating behaviors). Remarkably, household income and the poverty-to-income ratio are unrelated to dietary lifestyles and have virtually no impact on the magnitude of the association between education and dietary lifestyles.

Our findings are consistent with predictions derived from health lifestyle and human capital theories. We find no support for health commodity theory, the idea that people who are advantaged in terms of education live healthier lifestyles because they tend to have the financial resources to purchase the elements of a healthy lifestyle.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a basis for government decision makers regarding the gradual popularisation of traceable infant milk formula (IMF) and the construction of a safe food market system.

The data were collected from 1,225 randomly selected consumers in Shandong Province, China using a choice experiment. The authors used the mixed logit model to determine consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for IMF profiles with different levels of five attributes: traceability information, brand, country of origin, place of sale and price.

Results indicated that traceability information was more important than brand or country of origin for Chinese consumers. In terms of WTP for different levels of traceability information, grazing information was the most preferred by the respondents. The order of preference with regards to country of origin and brand attributes suggests that consumers prefer “foreign milk powder” to domestic products. The difference in consumer WTP between IMF sold in drugstores and in supermarkets is minimal. The higher the food safety risk perception, the higher the WTP for traceability information and the higher the WTP for “foreign milk powder (brand or country of origin)” compared with domestic products. In addition, the differences in the WTP of various risk perception groups between IMF sold in drugstores and in supermarkets are minimal.

This study subdivides traceability information into three levels (i.e. cow grazing, IMF producing and IMF selling) based on supply chain processes. It then compares consumer preference for the traceability information attribute with those of other attributes, such as brand, country of origin and place of sale. This research is valuable to members of the academe, policy makers and food suppliers.

The study measures the technology gap and performance of the Norwegian dairy farms accounting for farm heterogeneity.

The analysis was based on a meta-frontier and unbalanced farm-level panel data for 1991–2014 from 417 Norwegian farms specialized in dairy production in five regions of Norway.

The result of the analysis provides empirical evidence of regional differences in technical efficiencies, technological gap ratios (TGRs) and input use. Consequently, the paper provides some insights into policies to increase the efficiency of dairy production in the country across all regions.

The author used a meta-frontier approach for modeling regional differences based on a single-output production function specification. This approach has commonly been used in the economics literature since Battese et al. (2004). To get more informative and useful results, it would be necessary to repeat the analysis within terms of multiple input-output frameworks using, for instance, the input distance function approach. Moreover, the author estimated the meta-frontier using the non-parametric approach, thus it is also a need for further analysis if the values are different by estimating using a parametric approach.

One implication for farmers (and their advisers) is that dairy farms in all regions used available technology in the area sub-optimally. Thus, those lagging the best-performing farms need to look at the way the best-performing farmers are operating. Policymakers might reduce the gap is through training, including sharing information about relevant technologies from one area to another, provided that the technologies being shared fit the working environment of the lagging area. Moreover, some of the dairy technologies they use may not fit other regions, suggesting that agricultural policies that aim to encourage efficient dairy production, such as innovation of improved technology (like breeding, bull selection and improved feed varieties) through research and development, need to account the environmental differences between regions.

For both taxpayers and consumers, one implication is that the contributions they pay that go to subsidize dairy farmers appear to bring some benefits in terms of more efficient milk production that, in turn, increases the supply of some foods so possibly making food prices more affordable.

The paper contributes to the literature in several ways. In contrast to Battese et al. (2004), the author accounts for farm-level performance differences by applying the model devised by Greene (2005), thus may serve as a model for future studies at more local levels or of other industries. Moreover, the author is fortunate to able to use a large level farm-level panel data from 1991 to 2014.

The purpose of this paper is to assess consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for three different food claims on semi-cured, pasteurized sheep milk cheese. In particular, the authors used a health-related claim (the nutritional claim indicating a reduced fat content: “light”), a regional claim (“designation of origin – PDO”) and an organic claim (the European organic logo). Moreover, the authors investigated whether consumers’ personal characteristics could influence their WTP for those types of cheese.

A home-grown experimental auction was applied in Spain during Spring 2012. The authors opted to use the nth random price with repeated rounds and without price feedback.

The results show that consumers were willing to pay more for PDO cheese, followed by organic and light cheese. Moreover, respondents who were female, older and with a university-level education showed some environmental concerns, influencing their WTP for different cheeses.

Empirical evidence on consumers’ preferences for PDO, organic and nutritional claims, evaluated jointly, is lacking in Spain. Moreover, the home-grown auction has several merits in terms of real market simulation and consumer preference application.

Chinese beer consumption has undergone major changes within the last decade. The combination of a growing middle class and greater exposure to foreign products has resulted in a significant increase in beer imports. The authors examined transformations in this market and how beer preferences have changed over time. This study focuses on changes is origin-specific preferences (e.g. German beer and Mexican beer) as reflected by habit formation (i.e. dynamic consumption patterns) and changes in demand sensitivity to expenditure and prices.

The authors estimated Chinese beer demand – differentiated by source – using a generalized dynamic demand model that accounted for habit formation and trends, as well as the immediate and long-run effects of expenditures and prices on demand. The authors employed a rolling regression procedure that allowed for model estimates to vary with time. Preference changes were inferred from the changing demand estimates, with a particular focus on changes in habit formation, expenditure allocating behaviour, and own-price responsiveness.

Results suggest that Chinese beer preferences have changed significantly over the last decade, increasing for Mexican beer, Dutch beer and Belgian beer. German beer once dominated the Chinese market. However, all indicators suggest that German beer preferences are declining.

Although China is the world's third largest beer importing country behind the United States and France. Few studies have focused on this market. While dynamic analyses of alcoholic beverage demand are not new, this is the first study to examine the dynamics of imported beer preferences in China and implications for exporting countries.

This study investigates how the consumption of sugar products and non-alcoholic beverages has changed across birth cohorts. In addition, this study examines how the socio-economic gaps in the consumption of said products have evolved across birth cohorts.

The research data are drawn from the Finnish household expenditure surveys covering the period 1985–2016 (n = 44,286). An age-period-cohort methodology is utilised through the age-period-cohort-trended lag model. The model assumes that the linear long-term component of change is caused by generations replacing one-another, and that the age effect is similar across cohorts.

Sugar products and non-alcoholic beverages occupied a larger portion of more recent birth cohorts' food baskets. Cohort differences were larger in beverage consumption. Lower income was associated with a higher food expenditure share of sugar products in several cohorts. A higher education level was linked to a higher food expenditure share of sugar products in more cohorts than a lower education level. In cohorts born before the 1950s, non-alcoholic beverages occupied a larger portion of the food baskets of the high socio-economic status groups. This gap reversed over time, leading to larger food expenditure shares of non-alcoholic beverages in low socio-economic status groups.

This study assessed how the consumption of sugar products and non-alcoholic beverages has changed across birth cohorts. In addition, this study assessed how socio-economic differences in the consumption of said products have changed. The results highlight that sugar products and non-alcoholic beverages occupy larger portions of more recent birth cohorts’ food baskets. The results also highlight a reversal of socioeconomic differences in non-alcoholic beverage consumption.