Strategies of the retail of rice in a district of great tradition in cultivation

The main objective is to outline the strategies adopted by the management of food retail with regard to rice. Attention is focused on relations between the typical variety (Vialone Nano Veronese) and other rice varieties and on the strategic position of rice among other food products. With respect to these two systems of variables, it will be possible to outline strategic factors driving specific choices of purchase, sale and promotion that food retai- lers adopt for rice. The relations between the different types of enterprise (traditional retailers, superettes, super- markets, hypermarkets) and the strategic factors identified previously are also defined. Original data collected through the direct interview of a significant sample of food retailers in the Verona district have been used. The data has been processed according to the two following steps: univariate analysis and bivariate and multivaria- te analysis. Parametric and non parametric tests of bivariate analysis (test of Kruskal-Walllis and analysis of varian- ce) have been used to select the most significant predictive variables, while the use of univariate statistics stressed the main characteristics of every typology. The guidelines adopted at present for management have been identified so as to define the key factors of develop- ment upon which marketing strategies could be based in the future.