ABSTRACT
Nowadays, besides the food quality characteristics – the nutritional content, hygienic standards of foods, food additives, agrochemicals – that continue to attract the interest of the consumers, additional ethical factors like animal welfare, animal rearing and origin, and environmentally friendly production are playing an important and determinant role in consumers’ food choices.
Thus, the main aim of this paper is to measure consumers’ awareness of animal welfare by studying their attitudes and behaviour towards three certified animal products – meat, eggs and dairy products. Moreover, the effects of personal values, attitudes and other socioeconomic factors on demand for food produced under animal welfare standards are studied and measured utilising a self-administered questionnaire.
The most important factors that affect consumers’ intention to buy the three studied animal products are family size, the treatment of farm animals and the identity code of the animal (label). Results demonstrate that consumers are deeply concerned about animal welfare, and the majority of them express their intention to pay a small premium for food produced in compliance with animal welfare standards. The study also reveals that the market for products certified for complying with animal welfare standards has high potentials for further development.
