Organic and sustainable food: current business models and future challenges

Abstract

Companies in the agri-food sector are facing new challenges and opportunities as a consequence of both COVID-19 outbreak and the changes - both in terms of increase in food consumption and climate change awareness - of the last decades. This thesis starts with a chapter that analyses the definition of organic and sustainable food, explaining the difference between these two concepts and when they overlap. Along the chapter, EU green policies and the factors that influence environmental sustainability are deepened. The first part concludes with the explanation of innovations. To follow, the second chapter focuses instead on the business model notion, its features, the different types of BM that can be adopted, and the challenges that organizations have to face. There is a deepening of sustainable BM with the focus on agri-food companies. The third chapter shifts the focus to BM innovation in SMEs, introducing the concept of innovation ambidexterity and blockchain. To conclude, the last chapter analyses 20 interviews done to 8 organic and sustainable agri-food companies that operate in north-east of Italy. From these interviews are extracted recurrent themes and keywords in order to reconstruct their business models, to understand their attitude toward innovation, and to anticipate which future challenges these firms will have to face.