Farm animal welfare is one of the main reasons for organic food consumption in Germany, yet many consumers are unaware of common practices such as early cow-calf separation, which they tend to reject once they learn about it. Additional information has been shown to have a positive effect on consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) a premium for milk from farms with prolonged cow-calf contact (CCC). Despite their stated WTP, consumers' actual purchasing behavior often deviates from their responses in surveys due to various purchasing barriers, i.e. a high price. To assess the effect of additional information on consumers' choice of organic milk from CCC systems under financial constraints, a choice experiment ( n = 141) was conducted. The sample was split into four groups, which differed regarding the information they received about a label indicating CCC and the budget they were given to purchase ingredients for a pancake recipe, including milk. Due to budget constraints, some participants were forced to prioritize their purchases. The findings reveal that information has a positive influence on consumers' choice of organic CCC milk, however, financial constraints moderate this effect. Informed participants with limited financial resources tend to compromise in their choice of milk. Age and stated WTP for animal welfare predicted the probability of choosing organic CCC milk. By moving beyond conventional WTP analyses, the present study demonstrates that targeted information can induce behavioral change, thereby providing valuable insights into sustainable consumption behavior. • Additional information on a label indicating prolonged cow-calf contact positively influenced consumers' choice. • Financial constraints mitigated the positive effects of the provision of additional information. • Providing additional information to financially constrained individuals led to trade-offs in their purchasing decisions. • Participants' reported willingness to pay for animal welfare was positively related to their choice of organic milk from CCC systems.
Herrler et al. (Sun,) studied this question.