Trade in foods: an analysis of the determinants of the structure of food imports by nutritional quality in the French West Indies

The objective of this paper is to estimate the determinants of the key components of the nutritional quality of food imports in the French West Indies (Guadeloupe and Martinique) spanning over a twenty-year time period (1995-2016). To this end, we use an original database reconciling data at the six-digit level of the Harmonized System with data from the French food composition table (Ciqual 2017 ). Through an econometric estimation, we assess the impact of several socioeconomic determinants (per-capita GDP, female labor force participation, retail expansion and urbanization) on the supply of key nutrition components that characterize the nutrition transition: animal protein, fat (and particularly saturated fat), sugar and fiber. Our results suggest a positive association between both per-capita GDP and female labor force participation rate and the supply of macronutrients and fiber. Retail expansion (i.e. number of supermarkets and hypermarkets) is found to have a positive and significant impact on the supply of fat and sugar, but also on the supply of fiber. Urbanization impacts negatively the supply of animal protein and fat.