Retailer Supply Chain and Market Access: Evidence From French Agri‐food Firms Certified with Private Standards

Abstract

This paper explores an original data set identifying French agri‐food firms certified with two European private standards: the International Food Standard and/or the British Retail Consortium standard (BRC). Certified firms complying with such requirements are able to supply some European retailers with products sold under their retailers' own private label. Our analysis revealed that certified firms were among the biggest and most productive firms in the sample. Then, based on recent developments in international economics, we propose a modification of Chaney's model and estimations to test for the hypothesis that entering retailer networks reduces export costs faced by certified firms to access European union (EU) markets. After controlling for size and productivity effects, model estimations show that French firms who adopt BRC and enter the corresponding network benefit from better access through a significant decrease in their entry costs to certain EU markets.

Does GlobalGAP certification promote agrifood exports?

“…Most studies analysing the private standards and trade nexus use country-level data (Mangelsdorf et al, 2012;Shepherd and Wilson, 2013) in which case they apply gravity models to analyze the effect on bilateral trade flows. Increasingly, the use of firm-level data is becoming prominent (Melo et al, 2014;Latouche and Chevassus-Lozza, 2015;Schuster and Maertens, 2015). Like the present study, country-level studies provide an understanding of how standards affect exports of particular countries or products (Honda et al, 2015).…”

“…This paper represents another effort in response to calls for further empirical analyses of private standards on agrifood trade. Recent such efforts have focused mainly on product standards e.g., the International Featured Standards and British Retail Consortium certifications (Shepherd and Wilson, 2013;Latouche and Chevassus-Lozza, 2015;Ehrich and Mangelsdorf, 2018) which emphasize final product outcomes to be achieved. In contrast, we study more generic process standards which are involved in all stages of production beginning at the farm level.…”

The Role of Private Standards for Manufactured Food Exports from Developing Countries

“…Moreover, studies use either cross-sectional data (Latouche and Chevassus-Lozza, 2015) or are based on data which are limited to specific cases. This certainly questions external validity as emphasized by Beghin et al (2015).…”

The Evolution and Cultural Framing of Food Safety Management Systems—Where From and Where Next?

“…From a market perspective, imposed retailer requirements, reduction of transaction costs, mitigation of supply chain risks, and to a lesser extent productivity and efficiency improvement have also stimulated the adoption of private standards by food organizations (Fulponi, 2006;Schulze et al, 2008;Spadoni, Lombardi, Canavari, & Hingley, 2014;Latouche & Chevassus-Lozza, 2015). Indeed there are multiple drivers for standards development and adoption and also barriers to their adoption too (Figure 4).…”

“…Drivers and barriers for standard development and adoption, and their impact; model based on and drivers, barriers, and impact derived from academic reviews and empirical studies(Latouche & Chevassus-Lozza, 2015; Spadoni, Lambardi, Canavari, & Hingley, 2014;Herzfeld et al, 2011;Henson & Humphrey, 2010;Schulze et al, 2008;Theuvsen & Spiller, 2007;Fulponi, 2006;Henson & Reardon, 2005),…”