Economics of Food Processing in the United States aims to provide an economic overview of the food processing industries in the United States; to explore the firm-level implications of social, economic, technological, and institutional forces for selected food processing industries; and to uncover some of the implications for consumers, raw product producers, and the national economy of the major trends observed in food industries. The book begins by evaluating the major forces shaping demand, supply, prices, and trade in processed foods. It then considers major trends in technical processes; major forces in marketing, distribution, and structure; and major trends in regulation. The next few chapters explore these trends for five specific food processing industries, which represent major types of products processed: fruits and vegetables, meat, milk, grain and soybeans, and wine. After the specific industries have been examined, the final two chapters treat these industries in the context of the national and international economy. Students preparing for careers, researchers, and industry participants who study these firms and industries and the various approaches to solving their economic and management problems will benefit from the information in this volume and from its approach to presenting the dynamics of the food processing industries.

This book analyzes the economics of the food industry at every stage between the farm gate and the kitchen counter. Central to the text are agricultural marketing problems such as the allocation of production between competing products (such as fresh and frozen markets), spatial competition, interregional trade, optimal storage, and price discrimination. Topics covered will be useful to students who expect to have careers such as food processing management, food sector buying or selling, restaurant management, supermarket management, marketing/advertising, risk management, and product development. The focus is on real world-relevant skills and examples and on intuition and economic understanding above mathematical sophistication, although the text does draw on the nuances of modern economic theory.

The size of the food processing industry in the United States; The structure of food processing; Economies of scale and future plant numbers; Regulation of competition in food marketing; Measures of growth in food processing; The markets for food in the United States; The changing technological base in food processing; Locational changes in food processing; Cost differences among sates in food processing; The purchasing function in food processing; Food processing and pollution; Vertical integration and/or systems coordination; A summary and speculations as to the future.

How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans' well-being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change, economic inequality, and the federal budget. From the earliest developments of agriculture, a major goal has been to attain sufficient foods that provide the energy and the nutrients needed for a healthy, active life. Over time, food production, processing, marketing, and consumption have evolved and become highly complex. The challenges of improving the food system in the 21st century will require systemic approaches that take full account of social, economic, ecological, and evolutionary factors. Policy or business interventions involving a segment of the food system often have consequences beyond the original issue the intervention was meant to address. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System develops an analytical framework for assessing effects associated with the ways in which food is grown, processed, distributed, marketed, retailed, and consumed in the United States. The framework will allow users to recognize effects across the full food system, consider all domains and dimensions of effects, account for systems dynamics and complexities, and choose appropriate methods for analysis. This report provides example applications of the framework based on complex questions that are currently under debate: consumption of a healthy and safe diet, food security, animal welfare, and preserving the environment and its resources. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System describes the U.S. food system and provides a brief history of its evolution into the current system. This report identifies some of the real and potential implications of the current system in terms of its health, environmental, and socioeconomic effects along with a sense for the complexities of the system, potential metrics, and some of the data needs that are required to assess the effects. The overview of the food system and the framework described in this report will be an essential resource for decision makers, researchers, and others to examine the possible impacts of alternative policies or agricultural or food processing practices.

This book presents a wealth of perspectives on studying the manufacturing end of food processing industries, with a special focus on regions with a low industrial base and multiple missing markets, institutional finance being the most prominent example. Positioning food processing within the industrial ecosystem, which includes entrepreneurs, policymakers, business consultants and associations, the study first considers three different trajectories: for developed economies, for national territories like India, and for sub-national regions like Bihar. In turn, it shows how these trajectories intertwine in two dimensions: the region and the sub-sector. Successfully completing food-processing projects in any of these trajectories requires the identification and development of appropriate product networks that link basic processed items with advanced ones through a chain of value addition. Moreover, the supply-side narrative presented here identifies two types of costs: physical and non-physical costs of operation. For trajectories with skewed firm sizes (“missing middle”) and missing markets, which can be found in Bihar, the latter costs matter just as much as the former in terms of entrepreneurship. While efficiency in operations is studied for selected sub-sectors in Bihar’s food processing to assess the main sources of inefficiency in minimizing the physical costs of operations, non-physical costs are studied using the construct of region-based counterfactual thinking (rCFT) and its relationship with the perception of risk for entrepreneurs. rCFT offers a new concept for understanding the mindset of the entrepreneur, in which the regional identity plays a significant role. The empirical content is based on a primary survey of food processing in Bihar. Additional policy questions, such as the choice between spatial collocation of food parks or cluster-based development of unique sub-sectors, are explored through an analysis of the policy network that supports entrepreneurship. Issues arising from the government’s policy choices, particularly vertically targeted industrial policies, can influence industrial outcomes and are particularly relevant for regions like Bihar. While policy evaluation for Bihar’s processed food industry yields insights on policy targeting for decision-makers in the government, examples of parallel narratives from global experiences in comparable regions shed new light on industrial development in processed food, which should be of interest to business practitioners, academic researchers and policymakers alike.

Economics of the Food System provides a comprehensive overview of the food system, beginning with the physical and geographical context of United States agriculture. Concepts and tools of applied economics are then used to analyze the structure and economic characteristics of each component of the food system. Over the course of the text, students learn about agricultural supply, demand, and prices, market elasticities and derived demand, food processing, wholesaling, retailing and food service, and the international food market. They also study the role of transportation, the law of one price, risk management, storage, and emerging issues and challenges for the food system. Throughout the text, the focus is on how markets function to ensure that people have the food they want to eat, when and where they want to eat it. As they read, students will have constant opportunities to consider the key forces that shape the food system's ongoing evolution. With its comprehensive coverage of all aspects of food system economics and its attention to practical economic applications, Economics of the Food System is ideal for courses in agricultural economics or agribusiness Biographies David Blandford, who holds a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of Manchester, is a professor emeritus of agricultural and environmental economics at Pennsylvania State University. His teaching and research interests include agricultural and food policy, and international trade. Alan Webb holds a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Oklahoma State University and served 14 years as trade economist with USDA before joining Winrock International as a consultant on agricultural development. He held teaching and research positions at the University Putra Malaysia and National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. James Dunn, who holds a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Oklahoma State University, is a professor emeritus of agricultural economics at Pennsylvania State University, where his teaching and research focused on agricultural policy and food industry economics.