Healthy competition to support healthy eating? An investigation of fruit and vegetable pricing in UK supermarkets

Hao Lan, Paul Dobson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)
21 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

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.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)881-900
Number of pages20
JournalJournal of Agricultural Economics
Volume68
Issue number3
Early online date25 Aug 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sep 2017

Keywords

  • Fruit and vegetables
  • healthy eating
  • price competition
  • supermarkets

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