Attitudes of meat consumers in Mexico and Spain about farm animal welfare: A cross-cultural study.

The aim of this cross-cultural survey conducted in a developed country (Spain, n = 1455) and an emerging country (Mexico, n = 833), was to analyse how meat consumers perceive farm animal welfare and how these perceptions and attitudes can be convergent or divergent. The intercultural comparison shows that animal welfare is a convergent value between Mexicans and Spaniards. However, the importance of animal welfare for consumers varies according to sociodemographic variables such as gender, rural or urban origin, educational level and age. The motivations of consumers in both countries to build this convergence around the overall importance on farm animal welfare are divergent. For Spaniards, animal welfare seems to be a legal, administrative, and verifiable reality that must be profitable to society. In contrast, for Mexican consumers, animal welfare is still an aspirational ideal. Despite this, such divergences may end up building large consensus that are transformed into a stable added value of the market for meat products.

Consumer Attitudes Toward Animal Welfare-Friendly Products and Willingness to Pay: Exploration of Mexican Market Segments.

The study aim was to identify consumer segmentation based on nonhuman animal welfare (AW) attitudes and their relationship with demographic features and willingness to pay (WTP) for welfare-friendly products (WFP) in Mexico. Personal interviews were conducted with 843 Mexican consumers who stated they purchased most of the animal products in their home. Respondents were selected using a quota sampling method with age, gender, education, and origin as quota control variables. The multivariate analysis suggested there were three clusters or consumer profiles labeled "skeptical," "concerned," and "ethical," which helped explain the association between AW attitudes, some demographic variables, and WTP for WFP. This study is one of the first to address consumer profiling in Latin America, and the findings could have implications for the commercialization of WFP. Hence, customers should receive information to consider welfare innovations when deciding to purchase animal products. The growth of the WFP food market establishes an element of a far more multifaceted phenomenon of sustainable consumption and support of a new paradigm called responsible marketing in emerging markets such as Mexico.

Attitudes of meat retailers to animal welfare in Spain.

This study analyzes retailer attitude towards animal welfare in Spain, and how this attitude has changed over recent years (2006-2011). Retailers were concerned about animal welfare issues but a declining trend is observed recently, probably due to the financial crisis. The concern about animal welfare was affected by sex, with women retailers expressing a more positive attitude towards animal welfare issues than men. Retailers, based on their experience, perceive a low level of willingness to pay more for welfare friendly products (WFP) on behalf of their customers. This fact is reflected in the sales of the WFP, which declined from 2006 to 2011. The main reason for consumers to buy WFP, according to retailer perception, is organoleptic quality, with improved welfare being second. The results obtained provide a pessimistic picture in relation to the current market positioning of WFP, which is probably a consequence of market contraction.

Livestock vehicle accidents in Spain: causes, consequences, and effects on animal welfare.

Livestock vehicle accidents are rare but involve significant economic, human, and nonhuman farm animal losses. This study obtained information on the characteristics of accidents, the animals involved, and injuries to humans from newspaper reports about livestock vehicle accidents in Spain from January 2000 to December 2008. Most accidents involved pig transport (57%), followed by bovine (30%), poultry (8%), and sheep (5%). Driver mortality was not high (6%), and most accidents (76%) involved only the livestock vehicle, which often was overturned (64%) on a straight road transect (51%). Multivariate analysis of the data suggests 2 types of accidents, depending on the species transported. In the first cluster, 95.3% of the cases involved pig transport with articulated vehicles (60.5%). In the second cluster, 94.4% of the accidents involved small vehicles used for cattle transport (44.4%). The results of this study indicate that the characteristics of livestock vehicle accidents vary according to species. One of the main causes of accidents appears to be driver fatigue, which may be due to several factors such as intense workdays, poorly designed route plans, or high levels of pressure from companies.

Aspects of quality related to the consumption and production of lamb meat. Consumers versus producers.

The purpose of this study was to identify and compare the different evaluations made by the agents at either end of the lamb meat chain, i.e. producers and consumers, in relation to the parameters that consumers use when purchasing lamb meat and the factors that affect the production of quality lamb meat. In addition, consumer segments that can be targeted for action by the different agents in the chain were examined. The study was carried out in Aragón, a region in north east Spain that is a producer and consumer of lamb meat. 371 surveys were carried out on purchasers of lamb meat and 49 surveys on sheep farmers. Bivariant analyses and a cluster analysis were performed. The results suggest that there are certain congruencies and divergences between producers and consumers. Also, a segment of consumers for whom the hygiene and sanitary conditions on the farm, animal welfare and the environment are of great importance were found.

Factors associated with the purchase of designation of origin lamb meat.

As in other products, quality labels that designate the origin of lamb meat are increasingly used by consumers as a cue for inferring the quality of the meat. The aim of the present paper is to identify those factors that most affect the purchase of lamb with an origin quality label. For this purpose a total of 371 questionnaires were carried out in the region of Aragón located in the north east of Spain. This region produces 48.5% of the total amount of lamb meat with a Spanish protected geographical indication, whilst it also has the country's greatest per capita consumption (6.8 kg/person/year). To identify the most determining factors a logistic regression analysis was performed between three groups of buyers, characterised by their degree of loyalty towards purchasing origin quality-labelled lamb. The results show that those buyers who are less loyal to the label pay less attention to the origin of the meat when forming quality expectations at the time of purchase, whilst these are the buyers that place greatest importance on animal feeding as an aspect affecting the final quality of lamb meat. The buyers that are very loyal to the quality label associate this label with a product that offers greater guarantees and is healthier. Lamb meat buyers with medium loyalty to quality labels, consider quality-labelled lamb meat has better intrinsic attributes.