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Project

The Diet+ project proposes to analyse diets in France, by focusing on the relationships between the market mechanisms and the overall quality of diet, including the quality of the consumption, the possible improvements in the foods quality, the quality of the environment, the land use, and the possible improvements in public health.

This project will particularly study the impact of diets changes on consumers, supply chains and farmers. These diets changes may come from both food innovations and/or policies aiming at improving both environment and public health. Applied microeconomics combined with food science/engineering will be used for analysing various markets adjustments and possible improvements in supply chains.
Econometrics works, experimental economics, industrial analyses will lead to quantified estimates of various markets adjustments coming from these changes in diets.
The objective of Diet+ is to provide precise estimates of impacts of diets changes on consumers, supply chains and farmers, by also considering both environment and public health.

Work Packages

The project will be divided in three Work Packages (WP) taking into account various markets adjustments from the land use to the consumers’ health.

• The WP1 will focus on some changes in diets and their influences on markets and supply chains.
• The WP2 will detail the foods variety offered to consumers and the foods innovations with their impacts on market structures. T
• The WP3 will examine the optimal policy that could improve the overall quality of diets.

More precisely, the WP1 will focus on the overall change in diet, and its impact on both supply chains and characteristics related to environment and public health. We will focus on the meat sector that is often in front line regarding scientific and public debates. First, we will assess how a change in the demand for meat would impact overall consumers diet and agricultural production, by linking a demand model with an agricultural production model, assuming no food industry reactions. Second, we will study how this change in the demand for meat would influence consumers’ diet, firms’ profits and market shares of supply chains, by linking a demand model with a supply model for meat, assuming no agricultural producers’ responses.

The WP2 will study recent consumption trends regarding food variety and innovation. The first task will focus on animal products with healthy and environmental-friendly characteristics, including the new-vegetal substitutes for meat. The second task will analyse the relationship between the market structure, the level of health and environmental-friendly varieties, and the innovations. We also plan to determine how the health and environmental-friendly characteristics affect the value sharing between producers, manufacturers and retailers. The third task is devoted to design one innovation in the cheese sector, by creating a mixed “animal-vegetal” cheese, mixing up animal and vegetal milks, and by evaluating its consumers’ acceptance.

The WP3 will analyse impacts of policies on diets, environment, public health, and their consequences on adjustments in supply chains. We will study the optimal choice of instruments such as per-unit taxes/subsidies, labels and/or standards/norms related to meat and dairy products. We will measure the impact of these policies on agents’ surpluses, environment and public health. Additionally, we will pay attention to the transition from the current agro-food sector to a new model aligned with nutrition and low-carbon objectives, which requires a precise study of “progressive” shifts at each stage of the supply chain. Eventually, WP3 will examine the complementarity between health and environment in the analysis of future policy choices.

The combination of these different approaches will give a complete view regarding sustainable policies that directly or indirectly influences behaviours, market mechanisms and sustainability of diets.