Konstantinos Mattas

The Influence of Consumer Characteristics and Attitudes on the Demand for Organic Olive Oil

Abstract The aim of the present study is to examine consumer factors that affect the demand of organic olive oil (socioeconomic characteristics as well as attitudes towards organic products, food safety and the environment). Heckman approach for single equation procedure was applied in order to (1) identify the profile of regular buyers of organic olive oil based on the aforementioned factors and (2) to estimate income elasticity for the same product. Results indicate that the demand for or ganic olive oil is strongly affected by socioeconomic characteristics such as income size and occupation status, and to a lesser extent by attitudes towards organic products, food safety and the environment.

Technical efficiency measures for olive-growing farms in Crete, Greece

This study attempts to contribute to the productivity literature of the agriculture of developing countries by exploring the distribution of technical efficiency over time among olive-growing farms operating in the southern part of Greece—specifically, the island of Crete. A balanced panel data set during the period 1987–93 is utilized for the estimation of the stochastic production frontier. The results show decreasing efficiency for farms since 1987 and suggest the need for a development strategy to improve their economic performance in the context of expected major changes in the Common Agricultural Policy. A further result is that farm size, the farmers education, the existence of an improvement plan, and land fragmentation are the most important factors explaining inter-farm variation in efficiency.

The dynamics of crop sectors in regional development: The case of tobacco

The importance of specific crop sectors can be better cast in a broader framework to account for intersectoral effects. Input-output analysis can provide this framework to assess the importance of the controversial crop, tobacco. In this respect, employment, income, and output multipliers were estimated to demonstrate the dynamics of the sector at the regional and national levels. Furthermore, the impact of totally eliminating tobacco cultivation was computed. Results clearly demonstrate the significance of the tobacco sector and its interrelation with the rest of the economic sectors.

Revealing a region's growth potential through the internal structure of the economy

Analysts increasingly turn their attention to discover the hidden growth potential within the sectoral structure of a regional economy and to identify the most appropriate scientific tools for investigating sectoral development priorities. Advances in handling huge data electronically allow regional policy makers to garner a whole array of benefits spawning from an input-output analysis, as long as the use of fast-building input-output techniques will be sufficiently enlightened. In this paper, two of the most extensively used non-survey techniques, the Generation of Regional Input-Output Tables and Supply-Demand Pool Analysis, are applied to derive alternative regional impact indicators for the Mediterranean island of Crete. A comparison among several computed impact indicators demonstrates that substantial differences exist among them, although there is no evidence that the followed non-survey technique could lead to contradicted results. Also, results reveal that sequence and combination of the expansion of the sectors largely determine the regions growth pace.

Introduction to the Special Issue on recent Trens in the Food Industry and Food Chain

During the first decade of the millennium, considerable changes have taken place in the food industry and food chain in Western countries. The successive liberalization of agribusiness and food markets forces the food industry to respond to radical changes in the marketplace through consolidation, centralization, globalization, and large-scale operations. Understanding the changing economic behavior of market participants (e.g., producers, retailers, consumers) at different stages of the food supply chain is critical in formulating updated and well-informed corporate investment and marketing strategies and policies. Yet, it is important to emphasize that although several recent trends in the food industry and food chain seem to be similar to the trends resulting from a “moderate” revolution in the 1990s (e.g., concerns with diet and health, introduction of regulations on the uses of chemicals and additives in the food supply, the growth and market power of large, multinational food companies), the trends of the 2000s signal an “intensive” revolution in the Western food markets. However, the current revolution in the food markets, which may still be underway, changes the way that food producers and processors deliver food to consumers. That is, while consumers still demand the food items that they want, prefer, and desire of most of all, the ways food producers, processors, and retailers do business changes dramatically. Thus, the question that emerges is what are the features of this rapid and intensive revolution in the food industry and chain? Nowadays, considerable structural changes in agricultural production and the food marketing environment continue at a rapid and intensive rate. Specifically, the changing economic behavior of market participants in the agribusiness and food markets are subject to dramatic changes in food technology, information technology, the increased concerns of the various stakeholders for the conservation of the environment (e.g., natural resources), market participant attitudes for the formulation of corporate social responsibility standards and consumer safety concerns. All these changes that highlight the cornerstone features of the new revolution have attracted the interest of scholars and practitioners, since the new food production, processing, marketing, and consumption processes

Co-integration and error-correction modelling of olive oil consumption in Greece

This paper provides an empirical analysis of olive oil consumption in Greece for the period 1969–1998 using co-integration analysis. The estimated long and short-run elasticities suggest that prices of olive oil and other seed oils are more significant determinants of olive oil consumption than disposable income.

Valuing Consumer Perceptions of Olive Oil Authenticity

ABSTRACT Nowadays, while the authenticity of agri-food products becomes a major concern for consumers, given the increasing rate of food fraud reports across the world, olive oil records the highest adulterations. The high selling price of olive oil is the main reason for conducting adulteration, which is often caused through false indications on the packaging (mislabeling). On the other hand, consumers are well aware of the alteration, and they are looking for authenticity signals during the purchase process. Authenticity, therefore, becomes an evaluation and decision-making criterion that guides consumer choices. The aim of this paper was twofold: to highlight the attributes in which Greek consumers attach great importance during the evaluation of olive oil’s authenticity, and second, through consumers’ demographic segmentation, to gain more detailed knowledge about the attributes that consumers evaluate in olive oil authenticity. CUB (Covariates in a mixture of Uniform and Binomial random variables) models are employed for the interpretation of ordinal data due to the ability of comparing and clustering the rating distributions consumers express about olive oil features, and due to the ability of detecting significant similarities and differences in consumer responses. Moreover, with the introduction of respondents’ social, demographic, and financial characteristics, CUB models allow the measurement of the influence that the consumers’ profile has upon the attributes of olive oil authenticity. The results showed that consumers attached great importance to taste, acidity, country and region of origin, olive variety, color, organic production, and regional certification in the evaluation of olive oil authenticity. In addition, secondary school graduates tend to use taste and olive variety, also indicating confidence in the authenticity of organic olive oil.