Mobilizing the latent consumer demand for animal-friendly products: an interdisciplinary system approach to support stakeholders decision making

Within the current international economic and political environment improved welfare of farm animals relies predominantly on market initiatives. The Dutch market for pork and chicken meat products is characterized by a small market segment of consumers that buy products with added ethical value (e.g. organic) and a large segment that buys mainstream products. Despite previous attempts to improve animal welfare through market initiatives, animal-friendly products still play a minor role on the Dutch market. The subprogramme comprises an interdisciplinary effort through three PhD-projects addressing fundamental knowledge gaps at the level of the consumer, the level of the chain/retail, and at the farm-level. This PhD-project (consumer studies and consumer ethics) will develop a consumer segmentation based the different decision-rules that consumers may apply in integrating moral concerns in product choices and it will validate these findings in choice experiments that are more robust against social response biases.