Abstract China’s dairy market has long been characterized by a structural imbalance between high production and low consumption, constraining improvements in residents’ nutritional health. Drawing on data collected from 1737 respondents through a large-scale stratified survey, this study employs an ordered logit model, supplemented by a double machine learning approach to mitigate potential omitted-variable bias, to examine the associations of institutional and market trust with residents’ milk consumption, as well as the interaction between these two forms of trust. The results indicate that both institutional trust and market trust are positively and significantly associated with milk consumption and exhibit robust complementarity. However, heterogeneity analysis shows that this complementary relationship is not statistically significant in fourth-tier cities or among households without caregiving burdens, indicating marked contextual variation in the complementarity between the two dimensions of trust. Moreover, institutional trust, market trust, and their interaction are positively and significantly associated with consumers’ willingness to try plant-based milk, highlighting trust’s relevance to ecologically sustainable dietary transitions. By introducing a framework centered on the interaction between institutional and market trust, this study advances theoretical understanding of trust in food consumption and offers micro-level evidence for context-sensitive strategies to unlock China’s dairy market potential.
Abstract The liberalization of Kenya’s tea sector has created a more market-oriented supply chain but also encouraged the growth of informal market actors. However, the factors driving farmers’ participation in informal tea markets and their effects on household income remain underexplored. Using cross-sectional data from smallholder tea farmers, this study applies an endogenous switching regression (ESR) model to examine these relationships. The results show that farming experience, access to extension services, and education significantly influence participation in informal market. Notably, farmers who sell through informal channels earn about 3% higher household income, mainly due to reduced regulatory costs and prompt payments. Despite this benefit, informal marketing poses risks to tea quality control, as plucking standards of “two leaves and a bud” are often compromised. This leads to price instability and poses challenges for maintaining consistent tea quality standards. The study recommends policy interventions to promote sustainable marketing systems by improving access to credit, ensuring timely payments, and strengthening extension services to share market information and uphold quality standards.
Abstract Strategic planning is widely advocated in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), yet the mechanisms for its performance effects remain contested. Focusing on Finnish SMEs in the food industry, this study examines whether marketing capability explains the link between strategic planning and both financial and non-financial performance. Survey data were collected in 2024 from 202 firms and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling, with financial and non-financial outcomes modelled separately. The results show that strategic planning strengthens marketing capability, which in turn is positively associated with both non-financial and financial performance. Once marketing capability is taken into account, direct strategic planning-performance paths are non-significant, indicating full mediation. These findings suggest that, in retailer-dominated and resource-constrained food systems, strategic planning creates value primarily by building market-facing routines rather than by directly improving results. For managers, this implies that the payoff from strategic planning depends on developing capabilities such as market sensing, product-launch processes, and channel management. As the cross-sectional design of the study limits causal inference, further time-lagged tests of delayed financial payoffs are called for.
Abstract Freshness, a pivotal sensory attribute shaping both the palatability of agricultural products and consumer dietary choices, remains a principal focus in consumer quality evaluation. However, subjective judgments of freshness frequently diverge from objectively measured freshness, resulting in perceptual biases that have been largely ignored in the literature. Using cherry tomatoes as the empirical context, this study quantifies freshness perception bias by comparing laboratory-measured freshness with consumers’ subjective evaluations. It further examines the effect of such bias on consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) and investigates the role of different biopreservative label formats in shaping freshness perceptions and subsequent decision-making. The findings reveal that freshness perception bias is pervasive, with both overestimation and underestimation of freshness distorting WTP. Biopreservative labels, as salient informational cues, significantly influence both the formation of perception bias and its economic consequences. Negatively framed labels reinforce unfavorable perceptions and amplify their dampening effect on WTP, whereas positively framed labels help correct biased perceptions and mitigate the adverse effects of freshness underestimation. This study provides one of the first empirical quantifications of freshness perception bias and its impact on WTP, and demonstrates the role of label presentation in correcting such bias. The findings offer important implications for the design of agri-food labeling systems and firms’ information communication strategies.
Abstract This study adopts an ownership competence perspective to explore how member-level competences may contribute to value creation in agricultural cooperatives. Drawing on qualitative case study evidence from a German winegrowers’ cooperative, the analysis suggests that ownership competence becomes relevant for cooperative value creation in two interconnected ways. First, members’ competences in production influence the collective resource base of the cooperative, particularly through vineyard management, asset allocation, and long-term investment strategies. Second, members’ participation in cooperative governance structures allows individual competences to shape collective strategic decisions. The results indicate that cooperative value creation emerges from the alignment between decentralized member-level decisions and collective coordination within the cooperative. By highlighting the role of individual ownership competences in shaping cooperative outcomes, the study contributes to research on cooperative governance and the micro-foundations of value creation in member-owned organizations.
