Background: The purchase of local food is often argued to stimulate local economies through multiplier effects; this argument is questioned in this paper. Methods: The ScienceDirect, Wiley Online Library, Taylor and Francis Online, SpringerLink, AgECON, and Emerald databases were searched systematically. A complementary search in Google Scholar was also carried out. Peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2019 were identified using multiple search terms. Data about four types of multipliers (output, employment, income, and value-added multipliers) were extracted. Results: Twenty-four papers fit the criteria, allowing for a qualitative assessment only. Sixteen papers found unambiguously that an increase in demand for local food had a directly positive impact on local economies in some way; one paper found no impact at all. The papers were classified into three groups based on their focal areas: marketing channel-focused, farm enterprise-focused, and scenario/impact analysis-focused studies. In terms of the methods of analysis, three major approaches were identified: input–output models, assessments of descriptive statistics, and econometric analyses. Considerations related to the potential overestimation of current approaches are presented. Conclusions: The existence of employment and income multipliers seems to be more evident, while the impacts of output- and value-added multipliers depend more on the actual context. Research gaps are also identified.
Within a survey made of Hungarian awareness of, attitudes towards, and preferences for food labels and pricing, this study focused on consumers' reactions to quality and country of origin labels. Data were collected with a standard questionnaire, face-to-face interviews (1000 participants) in the respondents' home. It became obvious that consumers were looking for information about quality (rating its importance at 4.04) on packages, but information about origin (3.94) and production (3.89) was also important to them. The capability of respondents to spontaneously recall country of origin and quality labels was very limited: 35.5% of all respondents could not name any such labels. The best known label was "Hungarian Product" (30.5%), which was recognized by up to 90% of the respondents after they were shown it. Many consumers were ready to pay premium for products bearing this label (31.7%). According to our results, information about quality is important to consumers, but they do not look for it deliberately, and only a few consumers ascribe a higher value to products with labels bearing this information. There is a pressing need to increase consumers' confi dence for trademarks through dissemination of reliable information.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.