Francesco Contò

Strengthening regional identities and culture through wine industry cross border collaboration

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the potentialities of cross border projects to develop and promote wine culture, and consequently tourism and hospitality; paying particular attention to the process and actions supporting the development and refinement of cultural attributes, traditional values and regional identity. Design/methodology/approach – Methodologically, it is a deductive reasoning exploratory research, based on the findings of an extensive undergoing project across ten countries, spanning from Italy to Eastern Europe, and theoretically founded on an extensive literature review. Findings – The findings identify the spectrum and nature of opportunities and constraints of cross border collaborations in developing the wine industry and reaping of its wider economic and cultural benefits. Further to the scholarly value of the findings, the paper identifies and presents the descriptive managerial/industrial implications, along with prescriptively explicit directions toward practical ...

Social Media and Societal Marketing: A Path for a Better Wine?

ABSTRACT The social-media marketing tools, such as social networks, wine club and societal marketing strategies, can increase the knowledge of consumers expectations. The aim of the article is to verify whether these tools affect the product improvement. An exploratory survey is carried out in the wine sector in Apulia region (South Italy). Data were collected by online survey using the Survey Monkey software and were administered to a sample of pre-selected wineries; then, responses were processed by means of an ordinary logistic regression. Results are presented. Management implications and conclusions close the article.

Effect of durum wheat cultivars on physico‐chemical and sensory properties of spaghetti

BACKGROUND Mixtures of different cultivars provide semolina with proper processing properties but not always good nutritional properties. In this study, the effects of mono-varietal cultivars of durum wheat on pasta quality were evaluated in order to find a good balance between nutritional and sensory properties of the final product. RESULTS Durum wheat spaghetti was manufactured using semolina from six mono-varietal cultivars. A commercially available semolina mixture was also used to produce a control pasta sample. Instrumental (i.e. rheological and texture analysis), sensory (i.e. elasticity, firmness, adhesiveness) and nutritional (i.e. protein, ash and fibre content, glycaemic index) analyses were carried out. Results highlighted differences between selected cultivars. In particular, spaghetti obtained with Anco Marzio and Cappelli semolina (modern and old cultivars, respectively) showed the highest protein content and the lowest cooking loss, compared with the other samples. CONCLUSION Spaghetti made with Cappelli semolina showed the lowest adhesiveness and the highest hardness; it recorded the best overall quality and presented the lowest glycaemic response. Hence, durum wheat pasta with a good balance between nutritional and cooking quality could be obtained from semolina based on mono-varietal cultivars.

The Effects of Cloud Approach in Short Chain Administration

This work aims at analyzing the characteristics of supply chain, focusing in particular on the short chain. Further, it highlights the weaknesses and strengths of this form of business organization and industry. This analysis will proceed by explaining the new forms of management of the organization by means of the latest IT innovations focusing on the “cloud†and the role that they can play in improving processes and market information. It will also highlight how the use of these technologies can reduce the organizational gap as strategically illustrated in the first part and how they can help in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the supply chain processes that are already positive.

The Role of Innovation in the Integration Processes of Integrated Projects of Food Chain: The Case of the Cherry Cultivation Chain in Apulia Region

Innovation is one of the key strategies proposed in the literature and economic policies as a crucial driver of the agro-food sector. Innovation, especially in the agricultural sector, is not manifested only as an adoption of new technologies, but also requires a balance between new practices, techniques and alternative ways to organize and manage markets, labour, land tenure and distribution of benefits. In this context, the Economic Conventions (EC) have found fertile ground for coordination in the agro-food sector. Starting from a recent work by Malafaia et al. (2010) on the EC and the mechanisms of coordination, the paper analyzes the Integrated Projects of Food Chain (IPFs) approved by the Apulia region. The data collection was carried out through interviews and meetings with various actors in the supply chain and via Territory Listening Plane analysis, in order to identify the types of formalized or non formalized coordination, practiced by the agents. Further challenges are the definition and the identification of the forms of coordination set up by agents of the supply chains of IPFs via the implementation of the economic/computer/management model, which leads to the development of new business processes and to the validation of a prototype model of knowledge transfer and check-ups. In the end of the paper, conclusions are drawn.

Which strategic orientation for systemic integration? A study on the organic olive oil industry

In the agro-food industry, a hard constraint to farms development is the business dimension: the strategy of horizontal aggregation among producers could represent a way to overcome this problem. A condition for the effectiveness of the systemic firms integration is the inter-firms consonance. The paper aims at verifying the consonance among farms for their systemic integration feasibility assessment. Few studies on the topic can be found in the academic literature. For this purpose, an exploratory survey in the organic olive oil industry, based on multiple case studies, is presented: data are collected through a web-based survey submitted to a population of 200 firms and analysed by comparing their market positioning with their strategic orientation. The understanding of the systemic integration enhancing factors in the agro-food supply chain, such as the strategic orientation, can help farms in formulating and implementing the strategy of horizontal aggregation among producers, called producers organisation (PO).

Understanding reconfiguration pathways of agri-food value chains for smallholder farmers

Purpose – Smallholder farmers often deal with lack of information and knowledge, weak financial capacity and limited collaboration and network orientation. This is hampering their ability to adopt or co-develop innovation, and to participate in value chain exchanges. This calls for using intermediary organizations. The purpose of this paper is to understand how innovation intermediaries engage with smallholder farmers and provoke value chain reconfigurations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors systematically review literature to draw cases on intermediaries operating in the agri-food sector in several geographical and socio-economic contexts. The authors then adopt a theory building from cases approach to identify relationships between smallholder farmers and innovation intermediaries, and their effects in the reconfiguration of value chains. Findings – Consultants, knowledge transfer organizations (KTOs) and broker organizations (BOs) are the three typologies of intermediaries identified. While co...

BI4IPM: A Business Intelligence System for the Analysis of Olive Tree's Integrated Pest Management

TheAgri-Foodsectorisfacingglobalchallenges.Thefirstchallengeisfeedingaworldpopulation thatwill reach9.3billionpeople in2050,according toUNprojections.Thesecondchallenge is thedemandfromconsumersforhigh-qualityproductsobtainedthroughmoresustainable,safeand clear agri-food chains. Integratedpestmanagement (IPM) couldbe an important instrument for helpingfarmersfacethesechallenges.IPMrequiresthesimultaneoususeofdifferentcropprotection techniquestocontrolpeststhroughanecologicalandeconomicapproach.Thisworkexploresthe possibilityofdevelopingaframeworkthatcombinesbusinessintelligence(BI)technologieswith IPMprinciplestosupportfarmersinthedecisionalprocess,therebydecreasingenvironmentalcost andimprovingproductionperformance.TheproposedBIsystemiscalledBI4IPM,anditcombines on-linetransactionprocessing(OLTP)withon-lineanalyticalprocessing(OLAP)toverifyadherence totheIPMtechnicalspecifications. KEywORdS Business Intelligence, Data Models, Integrated Pest Management, OLAP, Olive Tree, OLTP

OLAP Analysis of Integrated Pest Management’s Defense Rules: Application to Olive Crop in Apulia Region

The Agri-Food sector is facing global challenges. The first concerns feeding a world population that in 2050, according to UN projections, will reach 9.3 billion people. The second challenge is the request by consumers for high quality products obtained by more sustainable, safely and clear agri-food chains. The Integrated Pest Management (IPM) could be an important instrument to help farmers to face these challenges. The IPM requires the simultaneous use of different crop protection techniques for the control of pests through an ecological and economic approach. This work explores the possibility to develop a framework that combines the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) with the IPM principles, in order to support the farmers in the decisional process, improving environmental and production performances. The proposed ICT tool is On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP), which allows performing analysis in the domain of time and space verifying for a single farm the respect of the IPM technical specifications.

Consumers perception of traditional sustainable food: an exploratory study on pasta made from native ancient durum wheat varieties

The importance of the production and sale of traditional food resides in its contribution to diversification of rural areas and to the prevention of their depopulation. Traditional food products (TFP) are an important element of the European cultural heritage and a decisive economic input to many regions (European Commission, 2007). Traditional and ancient native crop and varieties, abandoned over decades and recently recovered by farmers can be considered a special category of local and traditional foods whose importance is enhanced by social, economic and environmental meanings affecting both demand and supply in the food market. Native low-yields crops such as some durum wheat varieties cultivated traditional areas (i.e. Senatore Cappelli among others), were recently reintroduced and improved by farmers and breeders for their high-quality, pest resistance and their importance in the biodiversity conservation. As consequence of food scandals, globalization process and homogenization of products, consumers became more and more demanding for food quality, inducing the research, firms and government effort to understand and characterize and define consumer’s concepts related to quality of food products. Specifically, European consumers demand for safe and tasteful traditional food products (Cayot, 2007), but also for higher quality, convenient, nutritive and healthier options that fit better with the present needs in modern societies (Guerrero et al., 2010). Among the changes and trends affecting food demand and consumer habits, the re-orientation towards traditional food plays a crucial role in sustaining sustainable agriculture. As stated in other studies, in order to better understand and predict the likelihood of success or failure of traditional foods it is crucial to know the meaning that the word ‘‘Traditional” has in consumers’ beliefs. From the expert’s perspective there are some definitions of traditional food (Bertozzi, 1998; EU, 2006; EuroFIR, 2007; Jordana, 2000; Ministero Agricoltura, 1999; Trichopoulou, Soukara, & Vasilopoulou, 2007; Truefood, 2006), but only Guerrero et al. (2009) published a definition of TFP from the consumers’ point of view: “a product frequently consumed or associated with specific celebrations and/or seasons, normally transmitted from one generation to