Purchasing Locally Produced Fresh Vegetables: National Franchise vs. Locally Owned and Operated Restaurants

Arbindra Rimal and Onyango Benjamin

No 103464, 2011 Annual Meeting, July 24-26, 2011, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: The objective of this study is to examine purchasing practices of locally produced fresh vegetables among restaurants and food service institutions. The sample for the study included managers of 75 restaurants and dining centers out of a total of nearly 600 food service outlets in a mid-size metropolitan city in Midwest with a population of about 400,000. The study findings show differential preferences between national/regional chains and the local independently owned restaurants. Although managers across the board expressed willingness to buy local, actual purchasing decisions were largely driven by freshness, quality and availability. Price was not as critical a factor as others including variety and selection. The results suggest that local vegetable producers should use regularity, quality, and freshness to differentiate themselves. As a producer of small volume of fresh vegetables local farmers have much higher probability of success if they supply to locally and independently owned restaurants. These restaurants use small volume of vegetables in broader variety. Additionally, small variety growers may need to recast their business models as the industry seem to be moving towards fewer vegetables delivered round the year. These producers should consider investments in greenhouse to gain a competitive edge.

Keywords: Agribusiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16
Date: 2011-05-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/103464/files/AAEA_Manuscrpt_2011.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea11:103464

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.103464

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2011 Annual Meeting, July 24-26, 2011, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().