Based on a neo-institutionalist theoretical framework and using the Agrodata databank, the present paper analyses the main drivers underlying the restructuring operations of the top 100 multinational food processing enterprises worldwide and draws the map of the world's new agri-food landscape. World's agri-food oligopoly came out during these last decades concentrating an ever increasing financial and economic power (in 2002, the total value production of the top 100 food multinationals weighted for 27 % of the total production of the world food processing industry). Under constant pressure to improve their financial and economic performances, food processing enterprises face considerable constraints inherent in their international business environment : increasing international rivalry resulting from the adoption of liberalising economic policies by a large number of developing countries; importance that gain the financial spheres in world's agri-food chain; changing eating habits and consumer behaviour. Leadership seeking on large regional and/or world base in highly segmented markets pushes the top 100 food multinationals to reorganise their internal and external structures by adopting streamlining and cost cutting strategies while targeting larger geographical expansion thanks to mergers and acquisitions as well as partnerships that they realise. Consequently, they reshape world's agri-food lanscape and give way to the emergence of new finance-oriented governance patterns. ...French Abstract : En mobilisant une grille de lecture néo-institutionnaliste et en s'appuyant sur la base de données Agrodata, ce document analyse les logiques qui sous-tendent les restructurations des 100 premières firmes multinationales agroalimentaires mondiales et la nouvelle carte du monde agroalimentaire qui en résulte. On montre ainsi qu'un oligopole agroalimentaire de dimension internationale s'est progressivement constitué et que son poids économique et financier ne cesse de croître (les 100 premiers groupes mondiaux représentaient en 2002 près de 27% du chiffre d'affaires du secteur). L'intensification de la concurrence impulsée par l'ouverture des marchés, la financiarisation du secteur et les changements dans les comportements des consommateurs ont imposé aux entreprises de nouveaux impératifs de performance. La recherche du leadership macro-régional, voire mondial, sur des marchés de plus en plus segmentés conduit cet oligopole à mener des opérations de restructuration visant la rationalisation des coûts tout en soutenant une croissance externe (acquisitions, fusions, cessions, partenariats). Le profil du secteur au niveau mondial s'en trouve reconfiguré et l'on assiste à l'apparition de nouveaux types de gouvernance, plus financiarisés.
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Paper provided by UMR MOISA : Marchés, Organisations, Institutions et Stratégies d'Acteurs : CIHEAM-IAMM, CIRAD, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro, IRD - Montpellier, France in its series Working Papers with number
200608.
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