Abstract With increased consolidation by food retailers and increased fragmentation of consumer preferences, product differentiation is of growing importance to food producers and manufacturers for sustainable competitiveness. While the marketplace is dominated by large corporations such as General Mills and Kraft Heinz, there exist few farmer cooperatives with well-known brands, which may imply its long-term viability is jeopardized. Therefore, this study analyzes trademark data of U.S. farmer cooperatives to better determine (i) which types of farmer cooperatives brand and (ii) how much farmer cooperatives brand relative to firms. Per the first negative binomial model, trademark ownership intensity is relatively high for marketing cooperatives in dairy, fruits and vegetables, nuts, and several other raw commodities. However, the second model indicates farmer cooperatives own 1086% fewer trademarks as compared to firms in the same sectors. U.S. farmer cooperatives thus have relatively weak brand equity. To spur future competitiveness by means of branding, farmer cooperatives may improve product quality, adapt ownership structure characteristics to facilitate member investment in long-term growth opportunities, use strategic arrangements to assign control of non-member business to decision specialists, form common agencies with other farmer cooperatives, or use family-based or origin-based connotations to raise consumer willingness-to-pay.

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美国农民合作社的品牌塑造：商标所有权的实证研究

摘要随着食品零售商的整合增加以及消费者偏好的分散化，产品差异化对于食品生产商和制造商实现可持续竞争力的重要性日益提高。尽管市场上有大型企业（例如General Mills和Kraft Heinz）主导，但很少有具有知名品牌的农民合作社，这可能意味着其长期生存能力受到损害。因此，本研究分析了美国农民合作社的商标数据，以便更好地确定（i）哪种类型的农民合作社品牌，以及（ii）相对于公司而言多少农民合作社品牌。按照第一个负二项式模型，对于奶制品，水果和蔬菜，坚果以及其他几种原始商品的营销合作社，商标所有权强度相对较高。然而，第二种模型表明，农民合作社拥有的商标比同行业的公司少1086％。因此，美国农民合作社的品牌资产相对较弱。为了通过品牌塑造来激发未来的竞争力，农民合作社可以改善产品质量，调整所有权结构特征以促进成员在长期增长机会中的投资，使用战略安排将非成员企业的控制权分配给决策专家，并与其他农民合作社，或使用基于家庭或基于起源的含义来提高消费者的支付意愿。