SUMMARY
Summary: Developing countries are being encouraged to diversify their food exports by developing new products and adding more value to existing products. Adding value to and diversifying food exports depends not only on changing production and processing systems, but also on linking into appropriate marketing networks. A value chain perspective is used to identify various routes by which the value of food exports can be increased, focusing on strategies such as providing fresh produce, offering products for which consumers will pay a price premium and the development of branding and retailing activities. An analysis of marketing channels and upgrading strategies for fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and coffee shows how the development of niche markets for high-value produce creates new opportunities for developing countries' producers and exporters that can meet the required standards. New marketing channels have opened up as a result of a combination of changing consumer tastes and the increasing dominance of large retailers in the markets of industrialized countries. The identification of opportunities for adding value and the development of strategies to take advantage of them are based on an analysis of the changing governance structures of food value chains. [English only]
