Ethical Consumption and New Business Models in the Food Industry. Evidence from the Eataly Case

Abstract

Individual and collective ethical stances\ud regarding ethical consumption and related outcomes are\ud usually seen as both a form of concern about extant market\ud offerings and as opportunities to develop new offerings. In\ud this sense, demand and supply are traditionally portrayed as\ud interacting dialectically on the basis of extant business\ud models. In general, this perspective implicitly assumes the\ud juxtaposition of demand side ethical stances and supply\ud side corporate initiatives. The Eataly story describes,\ud however, a different approach to market transformation; in\ud this case a company and a social movement (Slow Food)\ud have negotiated and collaborated prior to initiating a new\ud business model. This collaboration process and its outcomes\ud are described, focusing specifically on ordinary\ud Eataly customers’ and Slow Food members’ reactions.\ud Given that Eataly can be regarded as a case of mainstreaming,\ud ordinary customers seem satisfied with the new\ud offering and the Slow Food support for the initiative; the\ud more purist members of the Slow Food movement had\ud critical concerns, however, as happened in similar conditions,\ud according to literature, with regard to Fair Trade. The\ud Slow Food endorsement of the new venture has also been\ud observed from the attitude–behaviour gap perspective, as it\ud contributed to addressing the factors affecting the gap\ud between attitudes and actual behaviours. Extensive qualitative\ud data were collected and analysed over a 3-year\ud period. The main study implications refer to the ways in\ud which companies and social movements could interact to\ud co-design new business models, as well as outlining consumers’\ud attitudes and behaviours towards such new\ud offerings

Foods and Places: Comparing Different Supply Chains

“…For our purposes, the focus is on products that are related to the place of origin; this means, once again, products usually referred to as typical; however, here the words 'ethnic' and 'exotic' are also used in order to underline that these chains are not univocally related with one specific location and, specifically, with proximity; rather, they offer a full range of products coming from a variety of places, from nearby to far distant ones [52,53]. In these kinds of chains the focal company is a multi-located retailer that may be nationally or internationally based that sells via outlets and/or on the web.…”

Ethical Food as a Differentiation Factor for Tourist Destinations: The Case of “Slow Food”

“…In a 2006 speech, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Marian Fischer Boel, suggested that ethical foods could play a significant role in re-orienting Europe's food system for the 21st century [7]. Consumers are more and more aware of their consumption choices and their impact, and this awareness is particularly seen in food consumption where ethical considerations apply to product, brand and channel choices [8] [9].…”

“…On the demand side, ethical stances are able to shift consumers away from specific market offerings and moderate behaviors to be more responsive to ethical requirements [8]. Ethical consumption does not have a shared definition.…”

A general equilibrium analysis of food industry considering the food quality

“…Triguero et al (2013) examined the firms' innovation strategies of the Spanish agrifood industry. Sebastiani et al (2013) illustrated the impacts of the firms' attitudes toward consumers on the food industry and gave some suggestions to food firms. On the other hand, governmental regulation attracts more and more attention.…”

“…Regarding the researching tool, there are mathematical model approaches including the game theory approaches as well as the dynamic model technology (Carriquiry and Babcock 2007;Wissmann et al 2012), the general equilibrium technologies (Lofgren and Elsaid 1999;Esmaeili et al 2013), the nature experiment (Kong 2012) and the empirical research (Sebastiani et al 2013;Scott 2013;Triguero et al 2013).…”