1 12th Congress of the European Association of Agricultural Economists – EAAE 2008 Segmenting the Italian coffee market: marketing opportunities for economic agents

Abstract — Globalization, either directly or indirectly (e.g. through structural adjustment reforms), has called for profound changes in the previously existing institutional order. Some changes adversely impacted the production and market environment of many coffee producers in developing countries resulting in more risky and less remunerative coffee transactions. This paper focuses on customization of a tropical commodity, fair-trade coffee, as an approach to mitigating the effects of worsened market conditions for small-scale coffee producers in less developed countries. fair-trade labeling is viewed as a form of “de-commodification ” of coffee through product differentiation on ethical grounds. This is significant not only as a solution to the market failure caused by pervasive information asymmetries along th