The role of inter-enterprise relationships in European pig meat, beef and cereals chains is analysed. Using survey data from 1,442 farmers, processors and retailers in six countries, the empirical relevance of several factors potentially influencing the choice of contract types and the sustainability of relationships is tested. In particular, the significance of quality orientation and the use of traceability schemes are explored. Market, industry and enterprise-specific characteristics are found to influence contract type choice while dyadic, firm-level factors appear to affect relationship sustainability. The results carry implications for agribusiness management, particularly regarding food safety standards, as well as policy support.

Purpose – Expert wine awards are commonly used by consumers to reduce complexity in wine choice but little is known about expert vs non-expert perceptions of sensory wine quality. This paper aims to examine if expert ratings are suitable quality indicators for consumers and whether there are certain groups of consumers that find expert awards more useful than others. Design/methodology/approach – The paper compares German consumer ratings obtained in a sensory laboratory with German Agricultural Society's quality competition awards. it tests for the correspondence between expert and non-expert ratings and for the concordance within the non-expert group. Estimation of a linear mixed model serves to identify consumer-side variables with an influence on individual rating distance. Findings – Correspondence between expert and non-experts and concordance within the non-expert group were found to be insignificant. Experienced wine consumers with sufficient specific knowledge and superior self-reported sensory skills better replicated expert ratings. Research limitations/implications – With 216 wine ratings obtained from 36 German consumers, the number of observations is small. Future research should verify above findings by considering more consumers and the stability of ratings across time. Practical implications – The findings suggest that although some consumer segments may find expert awards to be useful decision cues, for a large portion of the market, there is demand for a more consumer-orientated system of sensory quality evaluation and labelling. Originality/value – This paper is the first to address the usefulness of expert ratings to novice and experienced wine consumer populations. The statistical procedures employed (including linear mixed modelling) are shown to be useful techniques to handle the repeated measurement nature of the data.

This article deals with the relationship between international trade and tourism. We focus on the effect that German tourism to Spain has on German imports of Spanish wine. Due to the different stochastic properties of the series under analysis, which display different orders of integration, a methodology is used based on long memory regression models, where tourism is supposed to be exogenous. The period covered is January 1998 to November 2004. The results show that tourism has an effect on wine imports that lasts between 2 and 9 months. Disaggregating the imports across the different types of wine, it is observed that only for red wines from Navarra, Penedús and Valdepeñas, and to a certain extent for sparkling wine, tourism produces an effect on future import demand. From a policy-making perspective our results imply that the impact of tourism on the host economy is not only direct and short-term but also oblique and delayed, thus reinforcing the case for tourism as a means for economic development.