Despite being one of the three main themes of sustainability (global environment, workers, and animal welfare), animal welfare remains significantly underrepresented in research. This study applied the knowledge of ingredient branding to animal welfare and posed the following question: “Does promoting the raising environment for livestock cows increase the perceived value of milk among consumers?” In the food industry, ingredient branding can be categorized into raw materials, origin, and manufacturing/processing techniques. A common feature of these methods is their clear objective. In areas remote from consumers, such as animal welfare, the gap between ethical consumption attitudes and behaviors cannot be bridged unless the logic behind the product value is clear. Therefore, we hypothesized that an emphasis on comfortable facilities for cows would increase the perceived value of milk more than an emphasis on love. The results of a randomized controlled trial conducted in Japan support this hypothesis. This effect was more pronounced among middle-aged and older individuals and among men. This is because women and younger generations place more importance on emotional empathy, favoring “love by farmers.” These results suggested that animal welfare has the potential to become a source of customer value. Furthermore, this study strengthens this theory by adding animal welfare to the knowledge of food ingredient branding.
KATO et al. (Thu,) studied this question.