Organizational Structures in International High Value Food Chains. Evidence from Latin America

Today Chile is the Latin-American country with the most stable economy and the highest GDP growth rates. In contrast to Asia, this growth has not been driven by emerging manufacturing industries but by the agricultural sector. Thus, in the past three decades, Chile¿s non-traditional agricultural exports (NTAE) have significantly increased and, as a result, have strongly transformed rural areas in Chile (Challies and Murray 2011; The World Bank 2011). The NTAE strategy which was implemented by the military government of Chile in the late 1970s turned out to be very effective (Challies 2010). For instance, after only two decades, Chile became a leading exporter of farmed salmon and fresh and processed fruits. In the year 2004, Chile established a new agricultural and trade policy with the aim of developing and enhancing the agricultural export sector and making Chile among the top 10 exporters of agricultural products world-wide by the year 2015. Due to increasing globalization, companies are increasingly incorporated into the networks of international agri-food value chains and have to meet consumer demands in countries of the global North such as Germany (Challies 2010; Rivera Aedo and Lakner 2011). Vertical coordination as well as private and public food safety standards play an increasing role in Europe and the rest of the world (Theuvsen et al. 2007; Gawron and Theuvsen 2009).