This highly readable book is aimed at anyone with an interest in the food they eat. In conversational tone, and avoiding academic jargon, it provides an honest and objective account of the consequences of food consumption choices and policies, through the lens of economics.

Animal welfare is emerging as one of the most controversial issues in modern livestock agriculture. Although consumers can buy free range products in niche markets, some have argued that existing markets cannot solve the animal welfare dilemma because there are individuals who care about animal well-being who do not eat animal products. This paper proposes a market-based solution to at least partially manage animal welfare externalities. After discussing the current lack of market incentives to promote farm animal well-being, a potential (...) scheme to quantify and trade units of farm animal well-being is proposed. The potential merits and efficacy of an animal welfare market are also discussed. (shrink)

Attention to big data analytics is ubiquitous and growing given the online shopping revolution and its potential to generate individual-specific actionable datasets which were previously unavailable or cumbersome to cultivate. However, the food industry has not drawn much attention to discussions of individualized pricing strategies using online grocery datasets. Considering growth of the online grocery market and consumers data abundance to grocers, this brief viewpoint article focuses on potentials of incorporating big data analytics into pricing strategies in online grocery markets. (...) This discussion informs of various practices of big data analytics and ultimately calls to attention the potential for personalized pricing in online food markets. This article proposes the need for empirical analysis and developing research agendas investigating impacts of personalized pricing on market efficiencies, which is not as unambiguous in practices as it is theoretically. In addition, the status of online groceries, concepts of price differentiation, societal, economic, and regulatory implications of personalized pricing are discussed. (shrink)