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Optimization of individual stages within a production‐marketing chain (PMCh) may cause a suboptimal result of the PMCh as a whole. Market imperfections and conflicting interest may be the causal factors. Although vertical integration is often mentioned as the conventional solution, certain disadvantages and the large scale differences in agricultural PMChs make vertical cooperation a more appropriate alternative. Moreover, specific characteristics of agricultural food chains and changing market circumstances, including increased interest in the quality of products and production processes, justify renewed attention to vertical cooperation and product differentiation in agriculture. Current developments in the Dutch pork PMCh and implications on future research are described. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract Research of existing literature reveals some models (sequence of steps) for companies that want to plan distribution channels. None of these models uses strong contributions from transaction cost economics, bringing a possibility to elaborate on à`d istribution channels planning model'', with these contributions and organizing the steps according to a sequence that would be useful for companies when reviewing the distribution process. This sequence was refined through in-depth interviews with companies. Presents the final version of our model incorporating the results from the interviews.The research register for this journal is available at

Contributions to climate change mitigation and the environment edited by Peter Zuurbier Jos van de Vooren A vision proposed by experts in sustainability.

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