Spatial concentration as a premise for building relations: an application in Polish organic food clusters

Economic activity is embedded in the reality of a given region and its market structure. This regularity also materializes in agri-food markets. Location plays an important role in building competitive advantage because geographic proximity, resulting from location decisions of entities operating within an industry, is a significant condition for selected market activities. The accumulation of entities in the form of clusters may generate positive effects. Relations are established within and across geographic borders, and can result in the development of markets and their participants. The main purpose of this paper is to determine the premises for identifying clusters in the Polish organic food market which can provide a framework for building relations resulting in further development. The empirical investigation is based on 2016 data obtained from the Polish Agricultural and Food Quality Inspection and the Eurostat database, and employs descriptive statistics presented from various geographical perspectives (both national and regional). The concentrations of entities in the organic food market are estimated and assessed taking regional perspectives into consideration. Premises indicating the possibility for cluster development in the Polish organic food market were identified. Acknowledging such structural features should enable relations to be established that could translate into further development of the entities and of the entire market.