Satoshi Arimoto, Ayumu Tojo and Wenting Zhang*
Owing to a series of municipal mergers in 2005, the city of Niigata in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, transformed into the new Niigata City. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the industrial, governmental, academic and private sectors in Niigata collaborated for the nationwide promotion of food products and flowers, which are a specialty of Niigata City. Thus, the World Forum on Food and Flowers in Niigata was established. This study explores the comprehensive global food trade fair known as "Food Messe in Niigata" a large-scale event aimed at creating opportunities for food companies to negotiate directly with each other. This event was conceptualized to launch a movement aimed at building a network of small and medium-sized enterprises in the food industry in Niigata City. In this study, we use the Food Messe and Agano City as a case study and employ the concepts of social systems theory and network theory, with a focus on aspects such as the role of core institutions, the relationship between operational organizations and cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises.
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