Rôle des caractéristiques qualitatives des aliments dans l'évolution des consommations alimentaires : quelques analyses de cas

Since the 1960-ties, the evolution of the farm and food sector has been marked by a diversification of the marketed products and their characteristics. The impact of this diversification on the dynamics of the sector through market and consumption is not as obvious as it may seem. The mecanisms are not yet concretely analysed nor even completely accounted for. The object of this paper is to propose an analysis of four different food items the characteristics of which have known an important diversification during the last twenty years. This situation has led to internal substitutions between the products (beef, ham, poultry and milk). Our four examples show how quality considerations lead to a better understanding of the evolution of production and consumption structures. The result of a posteriori analyses based on price-quantity correlations can thus be completed or influenced by taking these substitution phenomena into account from the initial stage.