Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to develop a marketing strategy for a modern food/grocery market based on consumer preferences and behaviour. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 101 households having sufficient purchasing power were personally surveyed with a structured questionnaire. These households are spread across the well-developed Gomtinagar area of Lucknow city. Simple statistical analysis such as descriptive statistical analysis, frequency distribution, cross tabulation, analysis of variance, and factor analysis to assess the consumers' preferences for food and grocery products and market attributes were carried out. Findings -The preferences of the consumers clearly indicate their priority for cleanliness/freshness of food products followed by price, quality, variety, packaging, and non-seasonal availability. The consumers' preference of marketplace largely depends on the convenience in purchasing at the marketplace along with the availability of additional services, attraction for children, basic amenities and affordability. Results suggest that most of the food and grocery items are purchased in loose form from the nearby outlets. Fruits and vegetables are mostly purchased daily or twice a week due to their perishable nature, whereas grocery items are less frequently purchased. Research limitations/implications -This paper analyses the buying behaviour of the consumers under survey with respect to food and grocery items. These consumers are in a relatively advantageous position in terms of purchasing power and awareness of health and nutrition. Practical implications -The results may help the food processors and outlet owners to understand a diversified set of preferences for products and market attributes, so that they can make better decisions in the emerging organized food and grocery retail environment. Originality/value -The topic is relatively less researched in emerging markets especially where organized retail is still in its early stages.

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Purpose -In line with the ongoing global and domestic reforms in agriculture and allied sectors, the Indian Government is reducing its direct market intervention and encouraging private participation based on market forces. This has led to increased exposure of agricultural produce to price and other market risks, which consequently emphasize the importance of futures markets for price discovery and price risk management. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of agricultural commodity markets by assessing the relationships between futures prices and spot market prices of major agricultural commodities in India. Design/methodology/approach -The efficiency of the futures market for 12 agricultural commodities, traded at one of the largest commodity exchanges of India, i.e. National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Ltd, has been explored by using Johansen's cointegration analysis and Granger causality tests. Unit root test procedures such as Augmented Dickey-Fuller and non-parametric Phillips-Perron were initially applied to examine whether futures and spot prices are stationary or not. The hypothesis, that futures prices are unbiased predictors of spot prices has been tested using econometric software package. Findings -Results show that cointegration exists significantly in futures and spot prices for all the selected agricultural commodities except for wheat and rice. This suggest that there is a long-term relationship between futures and spot prices for most of the agricultural commodities like maize, chickpea, black lentil, pepper, castor seed, soybean and sugar. The causality test further distinguishes and categorizes the commodities based on direction of relationship between futures and spot prices. The analysis of short-term relationship by causality test indicates that futures markets have stronger ability to predict subsequent spot prices for chickpea, castor seed, soybean and sugar as compared to maize, black lentil and pepper, where bi-directional relationships exist in the short run. Practical implications -The results of this study are useful for various stakeholders active in agricultural commodities markets such as producers, traders, commission agents, commodity exchange participants, regulators and policy makers. Originality/value -There are very few studies that have explored the efficiency of the commodity futures market in India in a detailed manner, especially at individual commodity level.

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This study aims at identifying the factors influencing consumers' perception on food labelling and its impact on food purchase decision making, through personal interviews of 631 respondents using a structured questionnaire. To analyse the consumers' perceptions on food labelling, factor analysis has been carried out to identify the underlying dimensions among a set of food labelling attributes using the principal component analysis. Based on factor analysis, four sets of components/factors have emerged, that is, (i) serving method; (ii) quality and nutrition; (iii) production and storage; and (iv) product identification, which explain 66.271% of the variance. Logit regression analysis indicates that among the socio‐demographic indicators, the estimated coefficients for gender, education, income and location of residence are statistically significant. Similarly, information on quality and nutrition, production and storage processes, and basic information of the product is found to be significant, implying that these factors are more likely to influence the use of food labels in making informed purchase decisions by the consumers. The findings of the study give practical insights on food labelling issues for the food processors and policy makers.

Risk and uncertainty are inherent characteristics of agricultural production system; farmers are confronted with various potential risks related to production, markets, and prices that affect their financial returns and overall welfare. A study was undertaken to analyze factors affecting adoption of crop diversification as a risk management strategy in vegetable cultivation. A logistic regression model was constructed and tested based on responses to a questionnaire from 556 vegetable growers from eight districts of Uttar Pradesh. About 80% of vegetable growers adopted crop diversification and comparatively younger, socially underserved farmers with lower income are more likely to adopt diversification as a risk mitigating tool. Use of high-yielding seed, volatility in temperature, high marketed surplus ratio, availability of market demand, arrangement of organized buyers, and adoption of processing techniques are most likely to influence adoption of diversification. A better understanding of adoption of diversification for risk management was obtained and how socioeconomic, farm-related, market, and climatic factors affect adoption of crop diversification.

This paper attempts to analyse the impact of COVID‐19 lockdown on wholesale prices of the agricultural commodities particularly fruits and vegetables in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India. This study is based on the daily data collected from AGMARKNET of all major agricultural markets under the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC). The difference in weighted wholesale prices has been analysed before and during COVID‐19 and across various phases of the lockdown. The analysis of the difference in the weighted average wholesale prices across markets and commodities has shown a mixed response. The most hydrating perishable fresh fruits and vegetables with high water content have faced a significant decline in wholesale prices during the lockdown. On the contrary, other perishable fruits and vegetables have realized a gain in the average wholesale prices. The weighted average wholesale price has also declined over the phases of the lockdown. This study provides timely feedback for preparing all the stakeholders of the agricultural marketing chain to understand and formulate coping strategies to make the system resilient.