Organic Food Retailing and the Conventionalisation Debate

Marion Desquilbet, Élise Maigné () and Sylvette Monier Dilhan
Additional contact information
Élise Maigné: US ODR - Observatoire des Programmes Communautaires de Développement Rural - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
Sylvette Monier Dilhan: US ODR - Observatoire des Programmes Communautaires de Développement Rural - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Sylvette Monier-Dilhan

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: We propose an empirical study of French sales in conventional food retailing and in specialised organic stores for 2012. We examine the plant or animal origin of food products, as an indicator of the environmental and health impacts of sales, and their degree of processing, as an indicator of their health impact. The results indicate that sales of organic food products are more plant-based and less processed in specialised organic stores than in conventional retail stores, two criteria for a better health and environmental impact. In conventional stores, organic sales are more plant-based and less processed than conventional sales. Organic sales in conventional stores show some specificity, having the highest share of particular product ranges lacking a clear health or environmental impact, such as processed culinary ingredients or unprocessed or minimally processed animal products. Building a typology of buyers in conventional stores, we find that even purchases by buyers with the highest organic purchase intensity in conventional stores are less plant-based and more processed than average purchases in specialised organic stores. Our results characterise to what extent some of the holistic environmental and health impacts of organic agriculture are lower in conventional retail stores than in specialised organic stores in France in 2012.

Keywords: organic agriculture; unprocessed or minimally processed food products; plant-based food product; food environment; conventionnalisation; produit non ou peu transformé; produit ultra-transformé; environnement alimentaire; retail channel; conventionalisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in Ecological Economics, 2018, 150, pp.194-203. ⟨10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.04.025⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Organic Food Retailing and the Conventionalisation Debate (2018)
Working Paper: Organic food retailing and the conventionalization debate (2018)
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:hal:journl:hal-02625996

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.04.025

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().