Animal welfare has priority: Swiss consumers’ preferences for animal welfare, greenhouse gas reductions and other sustainability improvements in dairy products
{"title":"Animal welfare has priority: Swiss consumers’ preferences for animal welfare, greenhouse gas reductions and other sustainability improvements in dairy products","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.foodqual.2024.105350","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Animal welfare is at the forefront of the debate on sustainable food systems. However, animal welfare improvements often imply higher costs for producers. We explored whether Swiss consumers are willing to contribute monetarily to such improvements through an increase in prices of butter or milk. Based on a discrete choice experiment with 986 Swiss consumers, we investigated preferences for two animal welfare improvements in the dairy industry – loose housing and farm killing – as well as for organic production, origin of product, and greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. Furthermore, we investigated how consumers perceive a potential conflict between GHG reductions and animal welfare concerns. Half of our sample faced increases in milk prices; the other half faced increases in butter prices. Findings indicate that animal welfare is of higher importance to consumers when compared to the other attributes under analysis. Consumers oppose GHG reductions associated with deteriorations in animal welfare and are willing to pay for improvements in housing conditions and a less stressful killing of the animals. Improvements in animal welfare could be crucial for dairy industry actors and provide strong arguments in communicating benefits of dairy products to consumers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":322,"journal":{"name":"Food Quality and Preference","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Food Quality and Preference","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950329324002520","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Animal welfare is at the forefront of the debate on sustainable food systems. However, animal welfare improvements often imply higher costs for producers. We explored whether Swiss consumers are willing to contribute monetarily to such improvements through an increase in prices of butter or milk. Based on a discrete choice experiment with 986 Swiss consumers, we investigated preferences for two animal welfare improvements in the dairy industry – loose housing and farm killing – as well as for organic production, origin of product, and greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. Furthermore, we investigated how consumers perceive a potential conflict between GHG reductions and animal welfare concerns. Half of our sample faced increases in milk prices; the other half faced increases in butter prices. Findings indicate that animal welfare is of higher importance to consumers when compared to the other attributes under analysis. Consumers oppose GHG reductions associated with deteriorations in animal welfare and are willing to pay for improvements in housing conditions and a less stressful killing of the animals. Improvements in animal welfare could be crucial for dairy industry actors and provide strong arguments in communicating benefits of dairy products to consumers.
期刊介绍:
Food Quality and Preference is a journal devoted to sensory, consumer and behavioural research in food and non-food products. It publishes original research, critical reviews, and short communications in sensory and consumer science, and sensometrics. In addition, the journal publishes special invited issues on important timely topics and from relevant conferences. These are aimed at bridging the gap between research and application, bringing together authors and readers in consumer and market research, sensory science, sensometrics and sensory evaluation, nutrition and food choice, as well as food research, product development and sensory quality assurance. Submissions to Food Quality and Preference are limited to papers that include some form of human measurement; papers that are limited to physical/chemical measures or the routine application of sensory, consumer or econometric analysis will not be considered unless they specifically make a novel scientific contribution in line with the journal''s coverage as outlined below.