Large retailers and vertical control of the supply chain: private labels and private certification standards

In the last few decades, large retailers have become increasingly important and have radically altered the way value is created along the supply chain. Large retailers now control several phases of the production chain, through, among others, private labels and certification standards. The aim of the paper is to describe how recent strategies of large retailers are giving them dominance over producers in vertical control of the supply chain, thus, turning upside down the principal-agent relationship defined by theory and how, as a consequence, the retailer gross profits increase.