Matching Items (41)
Description
Unrestricted Mexican exports of sugar into the U.S. is considered the most pressing issue facing the U.S. sugar industry. The goal of this dissertation is to analyze the trade of sugar between Mexico and the U.S. as well as analyze additional primary issues confronting the U.S. sugar industry. Chapters 1 and 2 provide an introduction to the U.S. sugar industry. Chapters 3 through 6 develop trade models which analyze sugar trade between Mexico and the U.S. The trade models estimate how NAFTA, USDA sugar forecast errors and Mexican ownership of twenty percent of the Mexican sugar industry each impact U.S. producer surplus and Mexican welfare. Results validate that U.S. producer surplus and in some instances Mexican welfare were decreased by full implementation of NAFTA. U.S. producer surplus and Mexican welfare were decreased due to USDA sugar production forecasting errors. U.S. producer surplus would be increased if the Mexican government did not own twenty percent of Mexican sugar production. Using an online choice experiment, Chapter 7 assesses U.S. consumers' preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for imported and genetically modified (GM) labeled sugar and sugar in soft drinks. Results indicate that consumers prefer bags of sugar and soft drinks labeled as "Not GM". Furthermore, consumers prefer sugar from Canada and the U.S. over sugar from Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines. Evidence is also provided that participants are more likely to choose actual products in the choice set rather than the "none of these" options when controlling for hypothetical bias by using consequentiality techniques. A non-hypothetical experimental auction was used in Chapter 8 to determine consumers' WTP for soft drinks labeled with sweetener and calorie information and analyzed the role of taste panels in an experimental auction. Results indicate that sugar is consumers' most preferred sweetener and calorie labeling is ineffective at influencing consumers to choose healthier soft drinks. Including taste in an experimental auction caused significant reductions in consumers' WTP for all soft drinks. Chapter 9 concludes by summarizing the results of this dissertation and discussing the future challenges facing the U.S. sugar industry.
ContributorsLewis, Karen Elizabeth (Author) / Schmitz, Troy (Thesis advisor) / Grebitus, Carola (Committee member) / Manfredo, Mark (Committee member) / Ketcham, Andrea (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The Dodd-Frank Act was created to promote financial stability in the United States. However, no one is quite sure what it is yet. While action had to be taken and Dodd-Frank has some positives, Dodd-Frank, as it is deciphered today, has severe drawbacks. Since Dodd-Frank is only in its infancy, it is difficult to form an interim conclusion about its effects on agricultural lending at this point. After passing Dodd-Frank in 2010, the government began trying to figure out what it means. Four years later, they are still trying and are about half way through making the rules. This law essentially replaces Glass-Steagall, which was repealed several years ago. Many believe repealing Glass-Steagall was a big reason for the financial collapse of 2008. While Glass-Steagall was a short, easily understood document, Dodd Frank adds many more regulations and pages. This creates a long, bulky, confusing law that seems to be extremely tough to comprehend legally or as a banker. In this study, I try to balance the positives and negatives of Dodd-Frank to understand if it is more detrimental or beneficial to agricultural lending. While we find that Dodd-Frank does help keep banks from some of the risky investments that many believe led to the financial crisis, the added paperwork, compliance costs, and strain it puts on small banks can be worrisome. I interviewed several agriculture-lending professionals who regularly deal with the rules and regulations of Dodd-Frank to discover the impact the new law has on banks, their customers, and the economy as a whole. These interviews give insight into what Dodd-Frank means to the agriculture-lending market and what changes have had to occur since the law was passed. These interviews demonstrate that Dodd-Frank is largely looked down upon by the banking industry. The professionals interviewed are very experienced. After the extensive research, interviews, and discoveries that came of this study, it was concluded that Dodd-Frank seems to hurt the lending industry much more than it helps. One major concern is the strain Dodd-Frank puts on small banks and how it makes "too big to fail" banks even bigger.
ContributorsBettencourt, Bradley D (Author) / Thor, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Manfredo, Mark (Committee member) / Englin, Jeff (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Descriptionyour words
ContributorsWang, Dan, M.S (Author) / Grebitus, Carola (Thesis advisor) / Schroeter, Christiane (Committee member) / Manfredo, Mark (Committee member) / Hughner, Renee (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The global demand and trade for fruits and vegetables is increasing at national and international levels. The fresh fruits and vegetables supply chain are highly vulnerable to contamination and can be easily spoiled due to their perishable nature. Due to increases in fresh fruit and vegetable trade shipment volume between countries, the fresh food supply chain area is the highly susceptible and frequently prone to food contamination. The inability of firms in the fresh food business to have a good supply chain visibility and tracking system is one of the prominent reasons for food safety failure. Therefore, in order to avoid food safety risk and to supply safe food to consumers, the firms need to have an efficient traceability system in their supply chain. Most of the research in the food supply chain area suggests the implementation of a highly efficient tracking system called RFID (Radio frequency identification) technology to firms in the food industry. The medium scale firms in the fresh food supply chain business are skeptical about implementing the RFID technology equipped traceability system due to its high cost of investment and low margins on fresh food sales. This research developed two methods to measure the probability of food safety risk in food supply chain. These methods use the information gain from RFID traceability systems as a tool to measure the amount of risk in the fresh food supply chain. The stochastic optimization model is applied in this study to determine the risk premium by investing in RFID technology over the electronic barcode traceability system. The results show that there is a reduction in buyer (Type II error) and seller risk (Type I error) for RFID technology employed traceability system compared to electronic barcode system. It is found from stochastic optimization results that there is a positive risk premium by investing in RFID traceability system over the current systems and suggests the implementation of RFID traceability system for complex medium scale fresh produce imports to reduce the food safety risks. This research encourages the food industries and government agencies to evaluate alternatives to update supply chain system with RFID technology.
ContributorsJanke, Deepak Kumar (Author) / Nganje, William (Thesis advisor) / Schmitz, Troy (Committee member) / Thor, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Consumers can purchase local food through intermediated marketing channels, such as grocery stores, or through direct-to-consumer marketing channels, for instance, farmers markets. While the number of farms that utilize direct-to-consumer outlets keeps increasing, the direct-to-consumer sales remain lower than intermediated sales. If consumers prefer to purchase local food through intermediated channels, then policies designed to support direct channels may be misguided. Using a variety of experiments, this dissertation investigates consumer preferences for local food and their demand differentiated by marketing channel. In the first essay, I examine the existing literature on consumer preferences for local food by applying meta-regression analysis to a set of eligible research papers. My analysis provides evidence of statistically significant willingness to pay for local food products. Moreover, I find that a methodological approach and study-specific characteristics have a significant influence on the reported estimates for local attribute. By separating the demand for local from the demand for a particular channel, the second essay attempts to disentangle consumers’ preferences for marketing channels and the local-attribute in their food purchases. Using an online choice experiment, I find that consumers are willing to pay a premium for local food. However, they are not willing to pay premiums for local food that is sold at farmers markets relative to supermarkets. Therefore, in the third essay I seek to explain the rise in intermediated local by investigating local food shopping behavior. I develop a model of channel-selection in a nested context and apply it to the primary data gathered through an online food diary. I find that, while some consumers enjoy shopping at farmers markets to meet their objectives, such as socialization with farmers, the majority of consumers buy local food from supermarkets because they offer convenient settings where a variety of products can be bought as one basket. My overall results suggest that, if the goal is to increase the sales of local food, regardless of the channel, then existing supply-chain relationships in the local food channel appear to be performing well.
ContributorsPrintezis, Iryna (Author) / Richards, Timothy J. (Thesis advisor) / Grebitus, Carola (Committee member) / Schmitz, Troy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Sagebrush Coffee is a small business in Chandler, Arizona that purchases green beans, roasts them in small batches for quality, and ships fresh, gourmet roasted coffee beans across the nation. Deciding which coffee beans to buy and roast is one of the most crucial business decisions Sagebrush and other gourmet coffee roasters face. Further complicating this decision is the fact that coffee is a crop, and like all crops, has a specific growing season and the exact same product cannot usually be ordered from year to year, even if it proves to be successful. The goal of this research is to use data analytics and visualization to help Sagebrush make better purchasing decisions by identifying consumer purchasing trends and providing a recommendation for their portfolio mix. In the end, I found that Latin American coffees are popular with both returning and first-time customers, but a specific country of origin does not appear to be associated with the top coffee producing countries. Additionally, December is a critical month for Sagebrush and Sagebrush should make sure to target the states with the most sales: California, Pennsylvania, and New York. Arizona has growth potential as it is not one of the top three locations, despite the presence of a physical store. Also included in the following report is a portfolio recommendation suggesting how many of each product based on region, processing type, and roast level to carry in inventory.
ContributorsBlue, Jessica Morgan (Author) / Kellso, James (Thesis director) / Davila, Eddie (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Morrison School of Agribusiness (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This thesis will examine market research relating to consumer food trends and the business environment of Austin, Texas in order to evaluate the initial feasibility of establishing a small hydroponic produce farm. A main concern of this report is to provide a general overview of hydroponics and its potential advantages over traditional farming methods as a technique for producing food products for consumers in a local setting. To explore the potential of establishing such a venture, this report will also include a partial business plan focusing on the marketing strategy of initiating a hydroponic produce farm in Austin.
ContributorsShriver, John Andrew (Author) / Schmitz, Troy (Thesis director) / Manfredo, Mark (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Food deserts and food insecurity can negatively impact the health of communities. Urban farming, specifically with aeroponics systems, could be a possible solution in alleviating food insecurity in food deserts. In order to test and understand what type of system and products work best in such areas, this thesis looks at urban farming from farms' and consumers' perspective using qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data was collected from current businesses that are using urban farming techniques within the Phoenix valley. Based on the quantitative research, the consumers studied seemed willing to eat leafy greens and vegetables given that they are affordable, fresh, and they understand how to cook them. Further research could be a more focused study on residents of specific neighborhoods that are classified as food deserts. Another aspect that could be researched further is the other factors affecting the health of residents located in food deserts other than the availability of food. This could include, but is not limited to, lack of nutritional education, insufficient cooking materials, and personal food preferences.
ContributorsRaymond, Yann Gaby Jean (Co-author) / Curtiss, Mary (Co-author) / Grebitus, Carola (Thesis director) / Schmitz, Troy (Committee member) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The restaurant opening process for "Muse & Market" was documented and evaluated. For my creative project, I served as the Director of Business Development for "Muse & Market" and assisted in the carrying out of activities including supplier selection, functional retail assembly and other key decision making. I paralleled this experience by researching best practices in the restaurant industry. I performed research by reviewing academic literature and online sources and by interviewing marketing managers and restauranteurs in New York City and Phoenix, AZ. I compiled a list of best practices based off of the commonalities from my research and interviews. I then compared these findings to what I experienced at Muse & Market to determine which of Muse & Market's launch preparation activities aligned with which best practices. I also identified areas of improvement for Muse & Market based on this comparison. Lastly I offered my key takeaways from my experience as an aspiring entrepreneur in the restaurant industry.
ContributorsHyland, Ashley Lauren (Author) / Manfredo, Mark (Thesis director) / Davila, Eddie (Committee member) / Morrison School of Agribusiness (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
As the landscape of the mass channel of retailing has become increasingly competitive, the leading mass retailer in the world, Retailer A*, has identified the Hispanic market as their last organic growth opportunity within the United States. In this pursuit, Retailer A has named Manufacturer A., the largest food and beverage manufacturer in the world, as their sole category advisor for the Hispanic market across their entire store. Developing aligned strategies that leverage the size and power of these partners creates the potential opportunity for both organizations to benefit from increased profits and increased market shares. Manufacturer A has performed extensive research on the Hispanic market in order to gain a deep understanding of who Hispanic consumers are and the unique shopping behaviors they exhibit that make this market the most profitable ethnic group in the US.** Along with this research, an analysis of the top eight Manufacturer A brands’ performances at Walmart reveals that although both organizations already have footholds within the Hispanic market, there still remains large opportunities for growth. Through prioritizing business and marketing strategies aimed at appealing more to Hispanic consumers at Retailer A, Manufacturer A stands to potentially gain over $39M in incremental sales from this partnership.
* All company, brand, and product names have been redacted to protect confidentiality.
**All market demographics and statistical market information mentioned hereafter were originally researched and verified by Retailer A. Information mentioned throughout this paper was sourced from internal company documents.
* All company, brand, and product names have been redacted to protect confidentiality.
**All market demographics and statistical market information mentioned hereafter were originally researched and verified by Retailer A. Information mentioned throughout this paper was sourced from internal company documents.
ContributorsWay, Anneliese (Author) / Dietrich, John T. (Thesis director) / Grebitus, Carola (Committee member) / Morrison School of Agribusiness (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05