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Healthy Competition to Support Healthy Eating? An Investigation of Fruit and Vegetable Pricing in UK Supermarkets
Author(s) -
Lan Hao,
Dobson Paul W.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.157
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1477-9552
pISSN - 0021-857X
DOI - 10.1111/1477-9552.12241
Subject(s) - competition (biology) , business , healthy food , healthy eating , agricultural economics , economics , food science , physical activity , medicine , biology , physical medicine and rehabilitation , ecology
Governments and public health officials are urging the public to eat more fruits and vegetables to contribute to a healthy diet. However, there is concern that a lack of effective competition amongst supermarket retailers has resulted in inflated prices for these products which are deterring consumers from eating more of these healthy foods. We investigate this by examining the nature and extent of price competition for fresh fruits and vegetables amongst UK supermarket retailers, drawing on a panel of weekly retail and corresponding wholesale market prices over a seven‐year period. We find that the extent of supermarket competition varies across the products, being quite intense on some but much weaker on others, where the retailers do not fully respond to each other's prices and where the extent of their competitive interaction varies significantly with each other.