Abstract

The scientific examination of short food supply chains is justified by consumer interest and their role in the European Unions’ subsidy policy and rural development. In our current article, we present the results of a consumer survey of more than a thousand people from Hungary. It was conducted in the North Hungarian (rural) region. Our research goals were: (1) To access consumer demand for short food supply chains and to determine the characteristics of consumers who prefer local foods; and (2) to examine the role of short food supply chains in rural development by a territorial comparison. The results showed that consumers’ willingness to pay a theoretical premium for local products was high (averagely +20.7%). Compared to that, we considered their monthly purchased quantity low. We found a statistically valid, yet weak, correlation that on a monthly basis, the purchase of local products was more significant for consumers from smaller settlements and villages than those from (greater) cities. Furthermore, there were factors in some consumers’ preferences that indicated a greater interest for small producers’ goods. Although it was not possible to assess the absolute demand of the studied rural area, these results (at a certain level) confirm the potential of short food chains in rural development.

Highlights

  • Agriculture is classically considered one of the cornerstones of rural employment

  • We examine the sales of local products and the sales of small producers

  • From the authors’ point of view, in this respect, we considered products to be “local foods” if they originated from a local producer and were traded typically through short food supply chains

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Summary

Introduction

Agriculture is classically considered one of the cornerstones of rural employment. In addition to their economic characteristics, researchers are examining the role of short supply chains in rural development. Those who want to thrive as individual small-scale producers in today’s food trade may face serious difficulties. According to the report of the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) from 2016 [2], there has been a growing interest in short supply chains and local markets in all European countries, both in rural and urban areas, but their role in European food systems can be described as marginal

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