All in all, this study reveals differences in the strategic positioning of
private food firms and agricultural cooperatives and highlights the leading role
of some generic strategies to improve organizational performance. These
findings are vital for policy-makers, as both globalization and concentration
within the retail sector cause tremendous power imbalance between different
parts of the food chain. Currently, a handful of retailers are the trading partners
of some 13.4 million farmers and 310,000 food-industry enterprises across
Europe, putting producers and small food firms in an unfavorable competitive
situation (COGECA, 2010)