Spatial concentration as a premise for building relations: an application in Polish organic food clusters

Economic activity is embedded in the reality of a given region and market structure. This regularity also materializes in agri-food markets, the organic food market among them. Location plays an important role in building competitive advantage. Geographic proximity which results from location decisions of entities operating within an industry is a significant condition for the undertaken market activities. The accumulation of entities when taking the form of clusters generates positive effects. Relations are established within their borders that should result in the development of the market and its participants. The main aim of the article is to determine the existence of premises for identifying clusters in the Polish organic food market which can be the basis for building relations resulting in its further development. The implementation of such aim was carried out based on data obtained from Agricultural and Food Quality Inspection (IJHARS) and the Eurostat database. The analysis focused on the estimation and assessment of the concentration of entities on the organic food market in Poland taking regional perspective into consideration. In the course of the research, premises indicating the possibility of cluster development on the Polish organic food market were identified. Their structure should enable establishing relations that could translate into further development of the entities as well as the entire market against the foreign competitors