Food and Beverages

The current global scene is characterized by a huge paradox: “on one side, there is the scourge of poverty, on the other; 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted around the world every year”. To address these problems, alternative distribution formats aimed at reducing food waste, such as Food banks or Social supermarkets, which tackle two challenges in one go: by saving surplus food from the bin, they also help people feed themselves and their families for less. Since the 90s, a number of capabilities and applications have arrived which have either driven new forms of sharing or have modified the manner or scale of pre-existing forms of sharing. Social media may contribute to increasing sales and building customer loyalty for wine companies, especially through the social links that may generate sustainable profits based on recommendations made by consumers. The purpose of this study is, on one hand, to investigate the potential of social media such as Facebook to be used as a new distribution channel for wine and, on the other hand, to delineate how consumers behave vis-à-vis social media, especially in terms of their willingness to buy wine through social media. Data has been gathered from an online survey based on constructs using multi-item indicators. 156 valid responses were collected and analysed through structural equation modelling. The findings underline that winegrowers should seriously consider the potential of using social media in conjunction with their websites, in order to promote and distribute their wine.