Consumers across five European countries prioritise animal welfare above environmental sustainability when buying meat and dairy products

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F62156489%3A43310%2F24%3A43924956" target="_blank" >RIV/62156489:43310/24:43924956 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2024.105179" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2024.105179</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2024.105179" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.foodqual.2024.105179</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Consumers across five European countries prioritise animal welfare above environmental sustainability when buying meat and dairy products

Original language description

Food production systems, especially meat and dairy supply chains, contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. An important question emerges as to whether consumers care about environmental sustainability when buying food products, as this can determine their consumption practices. Further, if sustainability labels are available, identifying information that is relevant to consumers is important. This research therefore aimed to identify the attributes that are most important for consumers when buying meat or dairy products and the perceived helpfulness of sustainability labels for meat and dairy products and important label properties. An online survey was conducted in five European countries (i.e. Czechia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK). Consumers valued similar attributes when buying meat and dairy products across all countries. Freshness, quality/taste and animal welfare emerged as the most important attributes, while environmental attributes such as food miles, carbon footprint, and organic production were the least important. Sustainability labels for meat and dairy products were perceived as helpful. Regression analysis identified similar patterns within all five countries regarding the predictors of the perceived helpfulness of sustainability labels. Attitudes towards sustainable food consumption, environmental attitudes, and food production and policies emerged as significant positive predictors in most models. Most importantly, information regarding animal welfare, food safety, and health and nutrition was perceived as being more important than environmental sustainability. This suggests that food choice decisions are unlikely to be made based on the environmental sustainability of a food product&apos;s production alone.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

40500 - Other agricultural sciences

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Food Quality and Preference

ISSN

0950-3293

e-ISSN

1873-6343

Volume of the periodical

117

Issue of the periodical within the volume

August

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

11

Pages from-to

105179

UT code for WoS article

001218247000001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85189078281