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Climatic conditions play a major role in wine production. Given the increasing impacts and risks posed by climate change, it is important to understand the effects it will have on the wine sector and different wine-producing regions worldwide. This study provides an in-depth examination of the scientific discourse on wine and climate change from 2000 to 2022 by conducting a bibliometric analysis of the literature published on the Web of Science database, which included 1,314 publications. The use of quantitative and qualitative methods allows us to investigate how research has evolved over the years. Our analysis uncovers the most productive countries, institutions, and journals leading the research in this domain, while emphasising the multifaceted approach to studying wine and climate change. Nevertheless, numerous research areas are yet to be adequately explored. Through co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling, we identify dominant thematic clusters in previous and current scientific literature and reveal emerging research trajectories in this field. The main thematic clusters found include the assessment of climate change effects on viticultural regions worldwide, climate change's impact on grape composition, and the impact on grape phenology. Our results can be useful not only to understand the main themes studied until now but also to orientate researchers towards less explored aspects and disciplines in scientific research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A search of the term biostimulants on the most renowned scientific online databases such as Web of Science results in more than one thousand documents. Although some reviews have been previously published, there is no unified and comprehensive bibliometric review of the scientific literature related to biostimulants. This study examines the scientific literature on biostimulants from 2000 to February 2022 by conducting a bibliometric analysis of the literature published on the Web of Science database to deepen its evolution, trends, and macroareas to represent a quick reference guide for interdisciplinary researchers. We identify the most productive countries and journals, detect the major research streams and perspectives, and trace overall research development over the years. Furthermore, the results highlight aspects that have had little consideration in the current scientific literature, such as economic assessments of the use of biostimulants and more comprehensive explanations of the molecular mechanisms responsible for their positive effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use data from Wine Spectator on 266,301 bottles from 12 countries sold in the United States to investigate the link between the score awarded by the guide and the price charged. The link between quality and price is positive, in line with the literature. In a deeper inspection, however, hedonic regressions show that the price premium attached to higher quality is significant only for "superstar" wines with more than 90 points (on a 50–100 scale), while prices of wines between 50 and 90 points are not statistically different from each other. Furthermore, an analysis performed through normal heteroskedastic and quantile regression models shows that the dispersion of quality-adjusted prices is described by an asymmetric U-shaped function of the score; that is, products with the lowest and highest quality have the highest residual standard deviation. Pursuing excellence is a risky strategy; the average price is significantly higher only for wines that achieve top scores, and the price premium becomes more volatile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Packaging is an important economic component of the wine industry. However, while glass bottles are the leading wine container globally, their production and handling entail severe problems in increased carbon footprint impact and waste and logistic management. As a result, the wine packaging industry has developed and commercialised several alternatives to glass bottles, including aluminium cans. However, despite producers' efforts in proposing alternative wine packaging, there are several barriers to their diffusion, especially in countries with a long tradition of wine consumption such as Italy, and it is still uncertain if and to what degree consumers would appreciate a wine in an aluminium can. This research investigates Italian wine consumers' preferences and willingness to pay for canned wine through a survey and the contingent valuation method. We collected data from 551 consumers regarding attitudes and preferences about their wine consumption, alternative packaging acceptance, and motivations for accepting and refusing to buy it. Only a minority of the respondents declared they would buy canned wine, while the majority would refuse for reasons related to low-quality perception and poor consideration of alternative wine packaging. The lack of knowledge is one of the main obstacles to the diffusion of canned wine. However, canned wines could address different groups of wine drinkers and consumption occasions, increasing the opportunities for winemakers, especially among non-regular consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this research was to provide an exploratory analysis of the Fairtrade producer organisations' network, focusing mainly on the revenues that certified organisations derive from their participation in Fairtrade. Using descriptive statistics and regression techniques, we analysed the Fairtrade affiliated organisations from the comprehensive dataset on worldwide Fairtrade certified producers. The database comprises 1016 producer organisations and plantations, distributed in 65 developing countries during 2015 including all products and countries. We identified some features of farmer organisations that affect the creation of revenues, and we investigated the fraction of revenues that producer organizations derive from FT compared to their overall revenues. The results highlight the different approaches to FT by the certified organisations and do not reveal any dominance in terms of revenues by any type of producer organisations or by organisations involved in FT for the longest time. This research contributes to deepening the knowledge about Fairtrade operations and provide useful information to the debate on the role of Fairtrade in developing profitable value chains for producer organisations in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Consumers' concerns about the environmental impacts of food production have been increasing over the last years, and several certification systems for environment-friendly food products have been created. This research investigates wine consumers' preferences for a certification that guarantees the use of agricultural practices that better protect the biodiversity in the vineyard during the production of grapes. Design/methodology/approach: Using a choice experiment, we investigate consumer preferences and willingness to pay for biodiversity-friendly wines on a sample of 334 wine consumers. The experiment was carried out by direct interviews at a wine-tasting event in an Italian winery located in the Franciacorta area, in northern Italy. A between-subject design and two different questionnaires were used, one presenting the Brut bottle and one the Satén bottle. Findings: Estimates from a mixed logit model reveal that consumers are generally willing to pay a higher price for biodiversity-friendly wines, but they have stronger preferences for organic certification and quality indications. When consumers perceive a specific product as having high quality, i.e. Satèn, they might be less willing to pay for further environment-friendly certifications. Moreover, preferences depend on sociodemographic and attitudinal variables such as gender, wine consumption frequency, wine education and knowledge degree of the labels. Originality/value: This paper broadens the knowledge about consumer preferences and willingness to pay for biodiversity-friendly wines, focusing on a specific market segment of Italian sparkling wines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional extensive agriculture is the main factor of landscape management in the mountains: a large part of the Alps is modelled by agriculture. Interpreted as a multifunctional activity, including landscape modelling and maintenance, agriculture generates the conditions under which mountain pasture landscape is an economic resource potentially exploitable by tourism. The aim of this work is to draw the profiles of tourists of mountain pastures and to estimate their Willingness to Pay (WTP) for landscape pastures resilience. The innovation of this work lies in the use of a multivariate approach using Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA). The analysis obtained three clusters that identify different tourists' profiles. The main result is the existence of a positiveWTP for the permanence of pasture systems with an agricultural management. Policy guidelines have been proposed to institutions owning pastures and huts to manage these assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its foundation, the Fairtrade movement has attracted the attention of consumers, practitioners, media and scholars. Discussing the role that Fairtrade can play on a global yet locally rooted scale is very complex, as research reports contrasting results about its usefulness and effectiveness. This study examines scientific research on Fairtrade over the last decades by conducting a bibliometric analysis of the literature published on the ISI Web of Knowledge Core Collection, which included 876 papers by 1,293 authors in 432 journals. Results show that despite this being a relatively recent field of study, Fairtrade has been approached from different disciplines with different methodologies and objectives. The structured quantitative study of the literature enabled us to inspect how research has evolved over the years in the light of the changes faced by Fairtrade, to explore its scope in the broader field of the global market, to detect current research schools and perspectives within the network and to identify hitherto unaddressed issues and unconnected subfields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban gardening (UG) as a component of urban agriculture (UA) has reached popularity during the last decades. This growing interest depends on several factors including the different functions that have been attributed to UG over the years, operating from the economic to the social, health and cultural levels. While multifunctionality of UG is well documented, only a few studies investigated individual gardeners' motivations, which can be subjective and heavily affected by the local context in which it takes place. The paper aims to detect some peculiar features of Milan city gardeners, in order to highlight the motivations of their activity through an innovative and replicable approach based on multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA). The analysis has been applied to the Milan case study, in the North of Italy; the results suggest a great importance of the social component of UG, and trace some different gardeners' profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Consumers value the white refined cane sugar as having the same price as the white refined beet sugar. • Knowledge of Fairtrade by Italian consumers is very limited. • Consumers are willing to pay a premium for Fairtrade certified white refined cane sugar. • Information about Fairtrade increase consumers' willingness to pay for certified sugar. • Information is more effective for those consumers who boycott firms due to environmental reasons. Since its foundation, Fairtrade certification has successfully entered the mainstream market in most developed countries, and certified products can be found on the shelves of the most famous retailers. However, using labels to inform consumers about the ethical sustainability of products does not imply that they will read or use them at the time of purchase, and providing additional information has been identified as a viable method to increase the pool of buyers of certified products. Using Becker-Degroot-Marschak experimental auction and white refined cane sugar packs, we elicit the homegrown value that consumers in Milan (Italy) associate with Fairtrade certification, and we investigate the effect of providing additional information about Fairtrade on their willingness to pay. Our results show that consumers positively evaluate the presence of the certification on the products as they are willing to pay a premium for the certified products, and the premium increases when consumers are exposed to additional information regarding the Fairtrade system. Furthermore, combining the results of the auction with data collected through questionnaires, we analyze consumers' profiles concerning their attitude towards Fairtrade certification and response to information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last years, the trust of consumers in the quality and sustainability of the food system has weakened due to the disconnection between producers and consumers. Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) and Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs), born out of the perceived loss of trust in the globalized food system, are trying to shorten the gap between farmers and consumers. Nowadays, many scholars agree that local and global food systems coexist, and consumers usually buy both in local and in global food chains. Our study aims to understand the factors that affect the development of AFNs with a specific focus on the interactions with small- and large-scale food retailing in the Lombardy region in the north of Italy. We employ an Ordinary Least Square (OLS) model, on a municipal scale, in which the dependent variable measures the number of participatory activities carried out by farmers and consumers in AFNs. The main results highlight that conventional large retailers and alternative food networks are linked, and that the coexistence of the two market channels may lead to the development for both of them. Contrarily, where small stores exist, they may compete with an alternative food channel, as they offer similar products and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our current global Food System is facing extraordinary challenges in both size and severity, including a rise in unsustainable consumption behaviours, continued environmental degradation, growing food insecurity, and widening social inequalities. A Food System transformation is now both critically important and overwhelmingly complex, requiring nothing less than a complete overhaul of the entire value chain. Everyone is needed: Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with technological solutions, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) with social innovations, researchers with novel methodologies, governments with food policy advancements, professionals with varying expertise, and last but not least, empowered and informed citizens with the ability and resources for better decision-making. Living Labs offer a holistic, place-based approach needed to facilitate multi-actor inputs on various levels, specifically Food System Living Labs (FSLLs) like the ones established as part of the FoodSHIFT 2030 Project. Nine front-runner Food System Living Labs were operationalised alongside a novel framework merging high-level interdisciplinary initiatives with a diverse set of innovative approaches towards more Sustainable Food Systems (SFS). The FoodSHIFT Approach concept was praised by external evaluators for its ground-breaking framework, and the nearly completed project has been listed as a best practice. However, positive applications alone will not ensure a cross-sector European-wide Food System transformation, and the following text offers a critical reflection coupled with experience-based solutions to further improve the FoodSHIFT Approach., Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed., (Copyright: © 2024 Schafer LJ et al.)