A fact-finding investigation on Sicilian wine firms attitude towards third party voluntary certifications: motivations and alternative impact assessment approaches

In the last few decades an increasing emphasis of public and private organization on quality and safety control, on traceability of food products and on environmental issues, has been registered. Mandatory public standards and private voluntary today drive this process in order to assure food safety and traceability standards. The aim of this work is to analyze the main reasons that drives some Sicilian wineries in the adoption of quality voluntary standards, and comparing their economic attitudes and performance with those firms not certified. Results show a very similar performance patterns among the two groups of firms, highlighting a series of differences that are not directly attributable to the possession, or not, of certifications, but on the opening level together with structured net of sale agents. This findings suggests that it should be necessary to segment the overall firm turnover in order to find any possible effect. This results are justified by the specificities of the wine sector.