Promoting Sustainable Food Consumption: An Agent-Based Model About Outcomes of Small Shop Openings

Roberto Calisti (), Primo Proietti () and Andrea Marchini ()
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Roberto Calisti: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertocalisti/?locale=en_US
Primo Proietti: https://www.unipg.it/personale/primo.proietti/
Andrea Marchini: https://www.unipg.it/personale/andrea.marchini

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2019, vol. 22, issue 1, 2

Abstract: A useful way of promoting sustainable food consumption is to consider the spread of food retail operations focused on food diversification, food specialization, and fresh and local products. These food shops are generally small, which is a great problem for survival against ruthless competition from supermarkets. Our research objective was to construct a simulation with an agent-based model, reproducing the local food consumption market and to investigate how a new, small food retailing shop interacts with this market. As a case study, the model simulates the opening of a small farmers’ market. The intent of the model is to reproduce the current status of consumption for food products within a certain territorial context and given time period, and to investigate how consumers’ behaviour changes with the opening of the new shop. As a result, we could predict changes in consumers’ habits, the economic positioning of new, small shops and its best location. This information is of considerable interest for farmers’ markets and also for policymakers.

Keywords: Sustainable Consumption; Agent-Based Modelling; Farmers’ Market; Consumer Behaviour; Consumer Networks; Location-Allocation Problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-01-31
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jas:jasssj:2017-144-5

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