Click on “Download PDF” for the PDF version or on the title for the HTML version.

If you are not an ASABE member or if your employer has not arranged for access to the full-text, Click here for options.

Food networks are situations where product quality is difficult to analyze and needs explanations. Dynamic changes in supply or demand repeatedly force companies to find new suppliers or buyers for food, in particular for perishable products. Transactions with new partners in general involve various uncertainties and risks, though. E-commerce with its potentials for market transparency and transaction efficiency opens opportunities to start new business relations. E-commerce is often considered as anonymous, which enhances the perception of risks. To reduce risk and uncertainties in transactions with a new partner, information needs to be communicated to create trust and to lead to decisions for the transaction. In e-commerce environments being based on ICT, new potentials for information and communication is inherent. However, it is not known which information needs to be communicated in electronic transaction environments to support transactions with new partners in food networks and how this information can be communicated electronically. Due diligence is a mechanism in company mergers and acquisitions and refers to the reduction of risks from the transaction through information provision. This paper develops a due diligence for electronic transactions with new partners in food networks to enable ecommerce potentials in first time transactions.