Volume 19, Issue 2 - Special Issue: Challenges to assessing the sustainability performance of food quality schemes; Guest Editors: Valentin Bellassen and Mario Veneziani

This introductory article frames the special issue on “The sustainability performance of food quality schemes” by reflecting on the normative, systemic and procedure aspects and challenges of sustainability assessment frameworks in agriculture and the food system.

This article addresses the issue of the profitability of Food Quality Scheme (FQS) products as compared to reference products, which are defined as analogous products without quality label. We approach this question by taking into account the level of the value chain (upstream, processing, and downstream), the sector (vegetal, animal, seafood) and the type of FQS (PGI, PDO, Organic). We collected original data for several products produced in selected European countries, as well as in Thailand and Vietnam. Comparisons depending on value chain level, sector and FQS are possible by using two comparable indicators: price premium and net price premium (including cost differential). The following principal conclusions were reached: 1) Price is higher for FQS products than for the reference products, regardless of the production level, the type of FQS or the sector; 2) Price premiums generated by FQS do not differ along the value chain, nor between sectors (vegetal, animal or seafood/fish); 3) Price premium for organic products is significantly higher than for PGI products, and this conclusion holds at upstream and processing levels, taking into account the costs directly related to production; 4) All organic products and almost all PDO and PGI products analysed benefit from a positive quality rent; 5) At upstream level and processing level, the relative weight of intermediate consumption in the cost structure is lower for organic products than for reference products.

We study the effect of a set of food quality scheme (FQS) products within the local economy using a local multiplier approach based on LM3 methodology. To evaluate the effective contribution within the local area, we compare each FQS product with its equivalent standard/conventional counterpart. Local multiplier allows us to track the financial flows converging within the local area at the different levels of the supply chain so that we can measure the FQS product role in local economic activation. Overall, the FQS products exhibit a higher positive contribution to the local economy than the standard references. However, there is significant heterogeneity in the impact according to the product categories. In the case of vegetal products, the local economic advantage due to FQS is 7% higher than the reference products, but the statistical tests reject the null hypothesis that the medians are significantly different from zero. On the contrary, animal products exhibit a larger contribution of FQS than the standard counterparts (+24%). The PGI products (+25%) produce the major effect, while PDO products show a median difference lower (+6%). The organic and non-organic products seem to be substantially equivalent in terms of contribution to the local economy, due to the similarity in the downstream processing phase.

The carbon and land footprint of 26 certified food products – geographical indications and organic products and their conventional references are assessed. This assessment goes beyond existing literature by (1) designing a calculation method fit for the comparison between certified food and conventional production, (2) using the same calculation method and parameters for 52 products – 26 Food Quality Schemes and their reference products – to allow for a meaningful comparison, (3) transparently documenting this calculation method and opening access to the detailed results and the underlying data, and (4) providing the first assessment of the carbon and land footprint of geographical indications. The method used is Life Cycle Assessment, largely relying on the Cool Farm Tool for the impact assessment. The most common indicator of climate impact, the carbon footprint expressed per ton of product, is not significantly different between certified foods and their reference products. The only exception to this pattern are vegetal organic products, whose carbon footprint is 16% lower. This is because the decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from the absence of mineral fertilizers is never fully offset by the associated lower yield. The climate impact of certified food per hectare is however 26% than their reference and their land footprint is logically 24% higher. Technical specifications directly or indirectly inducing a lower use of mineral fertilizers are a key driver of this pattern. So is yield, which depends both on terroir and farming practices. Overall, this assessment reinforces the quality policy of the European Union: promoting certified food is not inconsistent with mitigating climate change.

This paper estimates the foodmiles (embedded distances) and transport-related carbon emissions of 27 Food Quality Scheme (FQS) products – Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indications (PGI) and organic – and their reference products. It goes further than the existing literature by adopting a value chain perspective, instead of the traditional consumer perspective, and focusing on FQS products. The same methodology is applied across all the case studies. The article specifically investigates the determinants of differences between FQS and their references. FQS products travel significantly shorter distances (−30%) and generate significantly lower transport-related emissions (−23%) than conventional food products. The differences are even greater for vegetal and organic products. The relationship between distance and transport-related emissions is not exactly proportional and highlights the importance of transport modes and logistics, in particular for exports and imports. Finally, we stress the importance of the spatial distribution of the different stages in the value chains (e.g. production, processing). PDO technical specifications delimit a geographical area for production and processing, thereby limiting distances and transport-related emissions compared to conventional food products, but also compared to other types of FQS.

Water Footprint (WF, henceforth) is an indicator of water consumption and has taken ground to assess the impact of agricultural production processes over freshwater. The focus of this study was contrasting non-conventional, certified products with identical products obtained through conventional production schemes (REF, henceforth) using WF as a measure of their pressure on water resources. The aim was to the show whether products that are certified as Food Quality Schemes (FQS, henceforth) could also incorporate the lower impact on water among their quality features. To perform this comparison, we analysed 23 products selected among Organic, PDO and PGI as FQS, and their conventional counterparts. By restricting the domain of analysis to the on-farm phase of the production chain, we obtained that that no significant differences emerged between the FQS and REF products. However, if the impact is measured per unit area rather than per unit product, FQS showed a significant reduction in water demand.

In this paper, we test to what extent Food Quality Schemes (FQS, including Geographical Indications and organic products) contribute to the social and economic sustainability of farmers and regions through employment and education. Through employment, FQS may counter the urban migration trend affecting rural regions, and help retain economic and social capital in the local region. Indeed, as FQS are often small and specialised sectors, the economic inefficiency of such businesses may translated into greater employment and social sustainability. Separately, by requiring a higher-level of quality and hence skills, FQS may encourage greater local educational attainment or skilled immigration. To test these propositions, we analyse the employment and educational outcomes of 25 FQS. Our results show that the FQS products examined have a 13% higher labour usage (labour-to-production ratio) compared to reference products, indicating that they provide greater employment. Additionally, wage levels are 32% higher in FQS compared to references. Despite providing greater employment and higher wages, profitability of FQS (i.e. how much turnover/profit is generated per employee) is nevertheless 32% higher for FQS compared to reference products, due to the ability to attract higher product prices. Finally, there is no clear link between FQS and greater (or lower) education attainment in the supply chain. Overall, our results suggest that FQS can provide a strong contribution to local employment, employee income and business profits, strengthening the social and economic sustainability of producers and regions.

Food quality schemes (FQS: organic and geographical indication products) are often supposed to be more sustainable by their political advocates. We explore the social sustainability advantage of FQS through the lens of supply chains’ bargaining power (BP) distribution. We propose an indicator synthesizing different sources underlying BP (competition-based, transactional, institutional) and counting two dimensions (fair BP distribution and adaptation capacity), that we apply to 18 FQS supply chains and corresponding reference. FQS perform better than their reference products on both dimensions. This better performance is due to a combination of sources.