In recent decades, the confluence of different global and domestic drivers has led to progressive and unpredictable changes in the functioning and structure of agri-food markets worldwide. Given the unsustainability of the current agri-food production, processing, distribution and consumption patterns, and the inadequate governance of the whole food system, the transition to sustainable agriculture and food systems has become crucial to effectively manage a global agri-food market able in supporting expected population growth and ensuring universal access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food for all. Based on a critical review of the existing international literature, the paper seeks to understand the evolutionary paths of sustainability issues within agri-food markets by analyzing their drivers and trends. An extensive analysis was conducted highlighting the development and importance of the body of knowledge on the most important sustainability transition frameworks, focusing mainly on the relationship between markets, trade, food and nutrition security, and other emerging issues within agri-food markets. Finally, the study makes suggestions to extend the research in order to improve basic knowledge and to identify opportunities to design meaningful actions that can shape agri-food markets and foster their transition to sustainability.

This study examines the extant state of research into our understanding of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in its early stages on food-purchasing behaviour. As such, it includes a summary and categorisation of the findings, extending to consumption preferences worldwide. After the indiscriminate stockpiling of food, which was witnessed in many countries following the implementation of the lockdown, the impact of COVID-19 (COronaVIrus Disease-2019) on consumer habits has inversely varied in function of personal attitudes, individual and household experiences, and characteristics. Specific contexts, and the financial, economic, and logistic nature of these contexts, have also been found to be of relevance in examining the research relating to the coronavirus pandemic and food-purchasing behaviour. Concurrent with the pandemic, some worldwide trends have emerged—home cooking has been rediscovered, leading to an increase in the demand for staple foodstuffs, and purchases from small, local retailers and online food shopping have been accorded preferential treatment. Despite price volatility and concern about future household incomes, a significant proportion of consumers have shifted to buying healthier, more sustainable food. Moreover, food wastage has seen a notable decrease in volume. Such an occasion should be strategically exploited by manufacturers and retailers in satisfying this consumer demand. Finally, the COVID-19 crisis would seem to offer an unparalleled opportunity to re-engineer the agro-food market by driving the transition toward more sustainable supply and production patterns. Thus, stronger and more equitable partnerships between farmers, manufacturers, retailers, and citizens may be in the process of being forged.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain the growing interest of English consumers in local organic food sold through box schemes, by providing insights into the motives of customers of such schemes and examining the relationship with their awareness about problems of the agro-food system. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed methods approach combined in-depth interviews with 22 box scheme customers with a quantitative survey of 416 consumers, analysed by means of principal component analysis and an ordered logit model. Findings: Consumers of small local organic box schemes in England are both altruistically and hedonistically motivated. This includes a strong political motivation to change the current food system, as shown by the strong influence of an anti-globalisation factor and wanting to support small farmers. They perceive local organic food as a more environmentally sustainable alternative to the mainstream food system. The box schemes offer consumers a practical alternative by providing high quality products combined with convenience illustrating the importance of the latter also in local food shopping. This reinforces the possibility to successfully combining the attributes of “local” and “organic”. Research limitations/implications: The study was conducted in only one country (England) with about 400 consumers of ten organic farmer-led box schemes. It was based on a self-selecting sample of consumers of such schemes, which included a large proportion of females and people with high level of education. Further research is needed to validate the results. Originality/value: This study is the first academic study investigating the main factors affecting consumers’ choice to purchase local organic food through a number of English box schemes. It identifies that such consumers are ethically and politically motivated and show some differences compared with the general literature on organic food consumption.

Nowadays, more and more consumers show a growing interest in healthy food products that may help to maintain or improve human health, such as honey. Honey has always represented a fundamental component of traditional medicine in many world cultures. However, only thanks to several studies carried out in the last years, its use is considered as an alternative and complementary medicine, namely apitherapy. In this way, honey is recognized increasingly by consumers not only as a natural alternative to refined sugar but as healthy food, as shown by determining an increase of its consumption worldwide. This study aims to explore the consumers’ determinants of honey consumption, trying to understand whether, and how much, therapeutic properties of honey affect the Italian consumers’ choices. The findings of this study, although exploratory, provide information on which quality characteristics influence honey consumption in Italy, revealing that, among quality attributes, the therapeutic properties of honey play an important role in affecting consumers’ behavior, followed by income, variety and taste. This could have some implications for producers and marketers as this information could contribute to defining effective marketing strategies for communicating to consumers the quality attributes of honey and its therapeutic benefits.

Global climate change and the accelerating depletion of natural resources have contributed to increase discussions about the role of private enterprises in reversing negative environmental trends. Rather than focusing on profit maximization, policy makers and consumers pressure groups expect firms to meet a triple-bottom line of economic, environmental and social value creation. Hence sustainable entrepreneurship has received recently increasing interest as a phenomenon and a research topic. More recently, the concept of sustainability has been taken seriously in the Italian wine industry. The organizational challenge for entrepreneurship is to better integrate social and environmental performance into the economic business logic. The aim of this manuscript is to illustrate, through a descriptive approach, the adaptation of the wine industry to the new scenario of sustainable entrepreneurship. To reach this goal we carried out an explorative analysis of 3 Sicilian wineries involved in the SOStain program, which aims at the improvement of sustainability in the wine industry. The findings of the analysis show the existence of sustainability-driven entrepreneurship, in which the wineries undertake to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life for the workforce, their families, the local and global community as well as future generations

Historic gardens are important parts of humanity’s built heritage within the designed landscape, providing many environmental, economic and socio-cultural benefits. Management is a key part of their conservation, perhaps the most difficult because it is costly, must be continual, and requires a skilled workforce. This systematic review looks at the literature addressing historic garden management, with special attention regarding the social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability. Academic studies on this subject come from many different disciplines, making it both stimulating and fragmented. It is now time to consolidate these interdisciplinary efforts into a clear vision, including a framework of key themes and research methods so as to better coordinate efforts and make the information and innovation generated more accessible to the garden managers “in the trenches”. With this aim, reviewed studies are classified according to 10 criteria: supply or demand orientation; management phase involved; primary sustainability processes addressed; geographic criteria; number of sites covered; policy documents referred to; kind of data collected; study methods employed; possibility of bias specifically regarding historic gardens; garden use. An analysis of these criteria shows that historic garden management literature focuses on describing the gardens themselves, with few studies interested in the people supporting them. Future research should follow recent policy documents’ lead and pay more attention to community value and involvement.