Vertical relationships in the value chain: an analysis based on price information for cod and salmon in Europe

During the last decades, distribution and processing has become more concentrated in many industries. This is due to innovations in processing, transports, distribution and logistics that increase the efficient scale of operation. The potential scale economies and concentration increase the possibility to exploit market power for those firms with key location in the value chain (Tirole, 1988). On the other hand, the increased scale of production may well lead to concentration to exploit the economies of scale without enabling firms to exploit market power (Paul, 2001). As demonstrated in Guillotreau and Le Grel (2001), this is a highly relevant issue in relation to seafood, as many value chains experience substantial changes that lead to higher concentration of retailers as the share of food that is sold through supermarkets increases.