Innovations and information management in the food industry

This study focuses on the strategic nature of information on new products or innovations, and examines how it is managed (detailed versus non‐detailed) and when it is released (pre‐announcements versus announcements) in the food and food‐related industries. We found that, compared with the pharmaceutical and the computer industries, firms in the food industry more often use pre‐announcements instead of announcements to release information on innovative activities. The calculated χ² of the hypothesis that there is no difference between the mode of releasing information and the industry group is 7.471 with 2 degrees of freedom and p of 0.0239, while the χ² with 5 per cent level of significance and 2 df is 5.99. We also found that information released on innovative activities in the food industry is less detailed than that in the other two industries. Furthermore, the press coverage of innovations and new product information in the food industry is significantly smaller compared with the other two industries. Finally, we found that the financial markets (stock prices) do not react significantly to new information on innovations in the food industry.