Aspetti socio-economici della qualità integrata in acquacoltura: la certificazione come strategia competitiva.

This survey carried out within a sample of seabream (Sparus aurata) and seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) Italian farms reveals that a large number of fish farms are currently using quality assurance systems based on formal certification schemes about production method or product’s quality. Many brands and labels informs consumers on quality attributes and/or on production method (e.g. organic farming, etc.) and they are used to develop a product’s differentiation strategy: farms trademarks, collective brands, public labels, large scale retailers (LSRs) private labels. LSRs play a crucial role in establishing production rules and quality standards to be complied by fish farmers. On the other hand, fish farmers tend to extend these production and quality standard schemes to their entire production, even for products placed on the market through different channels - perhaps even requiring less stringent standards - in order to reduce quality system management unit costs. The potential premium prices paid by consumers and transferred to farmers across the supply chain is limited by: i) the high market power of the LSRs, ii) the fragmentation of supply at the farms level; iii) the local-scale use of many brands and labels and iv) the lack of consumers’ information on products’ quality due to poor marketing and promotion policies. Transferring the consumers’ premium prices along the supply chain to fish farmers is very important because these premiums help to cover quality assurance costs and improve the margins for larger fish farms which are capable of exploiting economies of scale for the fixed costs of quality management systems.