The European tomato market. An approach by export competitiveness maps

Abstract

Most empirical studies examining the export competitiveness of a country in a target market are undertaken by focusing on supply, only analysing the group of competing countries. In addition, if the target market to be analysed is extensive, like the European Union, it is generally analysed as a whole. This study presents an evaluation of the tomato export competitiveness, from a differentiated demand perspective, analysing its main customers markets in the context of European Union. The methodological framework is implemented through Constant Market Share to analyze variations in exports, allowing the portion attributable to competitiveness and segregation into general or specific competitiveness to be quantified. The Constant Market Share was adapted to focus on the differentiated demand so as to observe the influence of the worldwide crisis (2007/08) on the European tomato market. This study allows the analysis of profile changes into the competitor exporting economies. As a contribution to the methodology, this study presents a new graphical way of representing the results of Constant Market Share methodology by means of export competitiveness maps in the European tomato market for the group for each main competitor in each European client market. According to our results, Spain and Belgium are candidate countries to be competitive in the main European markets.

Selected EU Countries Crop Trade Competitiveness from the Perspective of the Czech Republic

“…They concluded that changes in export competitiveness in the region are primarily driven by expansions of market share within the EU. Capobianco-Uriarte [58] also employed the CMS approach to examine the European tomato market.…”

Drivers of Productivity Change in the Italian Tomato Food Value Chain

“…European tomato production, according to FAOSTAT (Statistics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) data [7], steadily represents around 13% of global tomato production. In 2020, almost 17 million tons of tomatoes were harvested in the European Union [8,9]. The most important EU producer was Italy, contributing 38% to the total EU production.…”

“…Among Italy's processed tomato production, mashed tomatoes represent about 50% of packaged tomato volume [12]. The processed tomato sector is also important for Italy's international trade [9] since 60% of Italian production is exported to foreign markets [6]. With 747,000 tons of exported pasta tomatoes and 1.432 million tons of canned tomatoes, Italy is the leading exporter of tomato products [7].…”

Bananas, coffee and palm oil: The trade of agricultural commodities in the framework of the EU-Colombia free trade agreement

“…Nevertheless, studies of this type are difficult to find, most of the research, in Europe, is focus on competitiveness of agricultural products [ 5 , 6 ], volatility of prices [ 7 ], sustainability of food system [ 8 ], the assessment of biological risk–diseases in animals [ 9 , 10 ], environmental risk [ 11 ], negative impacts of the agricultural commodities on ecosystems [ 12 ], and few analysis on commodities diversification and their impacts.…”