title: Perceived importance and responsibility for market-driven pig welfare: Literature review.
abstract: This review explores barriers and opportunities for market-driven pig welfare in Europe. It finds, first, that consumers generally rank animal welfare as important, but they also rank it low relative to other societal problems. Second, consumers have a wide range of concerns about pig welfare, but they focus especially on naturalness. Third, pig welfare is seen as an important indicator of meat quality. Fourth, consumers tend to think that responsibility for pig welfare lies with several actors: farmers, governments and themselves. The paper concludes that there is an opportunity for the market-driven strategy to sell a narrative about naturalness supplemented with other attractive qualities (such as eating quality). It also emphasizes that pig welfare needs to be on the political/societal agenda permanently if it is to be viewed as an important issue by consumers and if consumers are to assume some sort of responsibility for it.
authors.affiliation: Department of Food and Resource Economics, Section for Consumption, Bioethics and Governance at the University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 25C, 1958, Frederiksberg, Denmark. Electronic address: ceth@ifro.ku.dk.
authors.forename: Cecilie A H
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Thorslund
authors.affiliation: Danish Meat Research Institute, Technological Institute, Gregersensvej 9, 2630 Taastrup, Denmark. Electronic address: mdag@teknologisk.dk.
authors.forename: Margit Dall
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Aaslyng
authors.affiliation: Department of Food and Resource Economics, Section for Consumption, Bioethics and Governance at the University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 25C, 1958 Frederiksberg, Denmark. Electronic address: jlas@ifro.ku.dk.
authors.forename: Jesper
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lassen
mesh_terms: D000827:Animal Welfare; D000818:Animals; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D005518:Food Preferences; D063427:Food Quality; D005523:Food Supply / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D040541:Marketing; D000069466:Red Meat; D013552:Swine
keywords: Consumer perception; Europe; Market-driven welfare; Meat quality; Pigs