The main goal of this paper is to measure and compare the awareness and preferences of consumers in relation to local products in three countries: Albania, Bulgaria, and Poland. (1) Background: The analysis focused on consumer choices when presented with local products, specifically knowledge as to their environmentally friendly status. The study was evoked by the need to recognize and evaluate changes in consumer behavior as a result of the pandemic and the global challenges related to climate change and the widespread call for nature preservation. (2) Methods: An online survey was conducted with 300 respondents from Poland, 262 from Albania, and 250 from Bulgaria. Statistical analysis was applied. (3) Results: The study answered research questions about consumer readiness to pay a premium price and awareness about the impact of regional products on the environment and livelihood of rural communities. (4) Conclusions: The study proved that consumer perceptions and behavior are influenced by a variety of factors and driving forces in the three countries surveyed depending on socioeconomic characteristics and relevant policies. COVID-19 accelerated the demand for products derived from nature-friendly production systems. Products with geographical indication (GI products) are a better choice from the perspective of sustainable consumption.

Purpose: The purpose of the research was to investigate how young consumers perceive food safety and if they trust that official food control agencies or other actors of food supply chains ensure a proper level of safety of food in Poland. The purpose of the paper was also to find out if young consumers are currently concerned that a proper level of food safety is not ensured.Design/methodology/approach: The analysis was based on a data set from 650 questionnaires collected in an online survey carried out in October 2020 and addressed to the group of young consumers, students of Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland. The analysis was carried out using standard methods of qualitative data analysis (QDA), descriptive statistics, Spearman’s correlation coefficient and Pearson’s chi-square test.Findings: Less than a half of Polish young consumers consider food to be safe and many other do not have an opinion about this matter. Young consumers do not perceive official agencies in charge of food control as the most responsible for food safety, and they either do not trust these institutions or have no opinion about it. Young consumers declare that food producers and food processing businesses are the most responsible for food safety while retailers and consumers are the least responsible ones. The majority of young consumers are not concerned about ensuring proper food safety.Originality/value: Up-to-date young consumers' perception of the role and trust in official food control agencies and food safety in Poland have not been investigated, which makes this study a novelty. The findings can be valuable to official agencies in charge of food control and consumer education, to improve their functioning. They can also be important as a basis for further studies, as young consumers’ attitudes and trust in official food control agencies can change.

Operation of short food supply chains (abbr. SFSCs) during the period of the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus provided a lesson which might be useful for perceiving the behaviour of farmers and local food systems in potential future crises caused by various endogenous or exogenous factors. A study based on a sample of 1081 beekeepers in Western Balkan countries shows how beekeepers involved in SFSCs perceived the influence of the pandemic on the growth of demand and sale of honey through these marketing channels. On the scale from 1 (no influence) to 7 (very strong influence), the average rating of 3.53 indicated a weak to moderate influence, which was fairly consistent across the countries of this region. The Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney test determined that large-scale beekeepers, those in mountainous areas, those adding value to honey and beekeepers producing other bee products apart from honey stated that the pandemic had a stronger influence on the growth of demand and sale of honey through SFSCs. At the same time, a higher rating of the pandemic’s influence on sales growth was accompanied by greater limitations of beekeepers regarding the availability of family labour for selling honey, as well as by greater needs for digital marketing knowledge and skills. Binary logistic regression showed that the increase in beekeepers’ age led to the decreased rating of the influence of the pandemic on the growth of demand and sale of honey through SFSCs. It also showed that the influence rating rose with the increase in production capacity, adding value to honey and beekeepers’ needs for digital marketing knowledge and skills. The obtained results provide valuable knowledge about the potential response of SFSCs and involved producers to future crises and disruptions. It is primarily intended for policy makers, but also to practitioners and scientific and expert communities. All of them should respond proactively on behalf of society and prepare themselves for future challenges.

The concept of local development remains a crucial one, especially in the context of European Union membership and its support funds. The multidimensional character of local development makes it a subject of interest not only to economists, but also geographers, sociologists and statisticians. The aim of the paper is to present differences in the level of socio-economic development of semi-urban and rural gminas in Poland and to find clusters of gminas with a similar level of development. Hellwig’s method was used to compare 2,174 gminas, which showed large development disparities. There is a clear boundary between Eastern Poland with Mazowieckie Voivodship, where the country’s capital, Warsaw, is located, and Western Poland. gminas with a high level of development were observed usually on Poland’s Baltic coast and suburban areas of Warsaw, Szczecin, Poznań, Wrocław and Kraków. Low level gminas were mostly situated in the peripheries of the eastern voivodships.

The study aims to identify spatial diversity and possible concentrations of 16 Polish regions regarding their infrastructure development levels in the period of 2005–2018. Measuring development of technical infrastructure requires the use of several variables due to its multidimensional character. It justifies the use of multivariate analysis. Based on the method of Hellwig’s development measure, three groups of regions were defined. Five of the analysed regions did not change their position in the 2018 ranking as compared to 2005. These were regions from the top three: Śląskie, Dolnośląskie and Małopolskie (south-western Poland), as well as two regions in the class with the lowest level of technical infrastructure development: Warmińsko-Mazurskie and Podlaskie (north-eastern Poland). Although the leader of both rankings, Śląski region, took the most favourable values in 2018 concerning density and quality of roads, density of railway lines or green areas in towns, as a typically industrial, mining-related, intensely urbanized region is has needed to cope with a serious problem with air pollution, relating from the smallest amount of gas pollution retained or neutralized. In the other side, the two weakest regions were characterised by valuable environmental conditions (Warmińsko-Mazurskie) and a large share of agricultural area (Podlaskie). These natural and economic conditions may, on the one hand, prevent the development of technical infrastructure (e.g. road construction in Natura 2000 areas), and on the other hand, maintenance of such infrastructure could be unprofitable for both local government units and its users.