Factors leading to differences in the internal structures of French agricultural quality groups: A typology

Abstract

In France, agricultural quality signs, such as Protected Geographical Indications and Label Rouge, are managed by “quality groups” (QGs)—collective associations made up of farmers and other value chain actors. While French regulations provide some common rules for QGs, the value chain segments they capture may vary substantially from group to group. For this study, we comprehensively investigated 12 diverse French QGs to better understand the types of actors and value chains involved. We also utilized publicly-available documents for numerous other French QGs to inform the overall analysis. While some QGs are focused solely on farmers, others include genetics businesses all the way through processing and packaging. The product focus of QGs ranges from meats and cheeses to fruits and vegetables, and further to flowers and other non-food agricultural products. Some QG value chains are focused on local or regional production, but others have national supermarket chain scale. We identified important factors that led to differences in the value chain structure involved in QGs, in particular, production chain length, processing mode, distribution mode, and sectoral focus. We applied these factors to our cases to develop a typology. While external forces, such as market competition, macroeconomics, and legal systems, will likely affect the value chain structure involved in a QG, we postulate that across contexts, most cases will fall into one of our six identified types. This typology may be useful for predicting value chain actor relationships for geographical indication development efforts, and for analysis of current QG’s structures.