Can dogs help chickens? Pet owners’ willingness to pay for animal welfare-friendly pet food in the United States

Abstract

Consumer concern about farmed animal welfare is growing but does not always translate into real-world purchasing behaviour of welfare-friendly animal products for human consumption. Possible reasons for this include unfamiliarity with farming practices and economic sensitivity. In contrast, the number and role of pets in the United States have grown measurably, and spending on pets is strong. The pet food market has many opportunity niches as pet owners navigate strong marketing trends and nutrition philosophies. We hypothesised that pet owners in the US would be willing to pay a premium for pet food containing welfare-friendly animal ingredients. Eight hundred and thirty-eight pet owners completed an online survey asking questions that measured their knowledge of and interest in farm animal welfare, and their willingness-to-pay for pet food labelled as farm animal welfare-friendly. Respondents overall displayed relatively low knowledge about farm animal welfare, but poor self-assessment of their own knowledge. They displayed interest in farm animal welfare and an overall positive mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) for welfare-friendly pet food. Younger respondents, women and cat owners displayed a higher WTP than older respondents, men and dog owners. Income level was not correlated to WTP. Creating pet food products that contain animal ingredients produced using welfare-friendly practices may enhance farm animal welfare via two primary avenues: by providing a sustainable and value-added outlet for the by-products of welfare-friendly human food products, and by providing an educational opportunity about farm animal production via pet food packaging and other advertising.

Potential demand for National Health Insurance in Zimbabwe: Evidence from selected urban informal sector clusters in Harare

“…In the WTP literature, some studies modelled WTP data from the DBDC elicitation via the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) technique [ 27 , 42 , 43 ] whilst others embraced the maximum likelihood method [ 24 , 26 , 40 , 41 , 44 , 45 ]. It is argued that when the regressand is bounded between two points (meaning that there is no distinct point estimate), estimation should be done via maximum likelihood rather than OLS [ 40 , 44 ].…”

“…In the WTP literature, some studies modelled WTP data from the DBDC elicitation via the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) technique [ 27 , 42 , 43 ] whilst others embraced the maximum likelihood method [ 24 , 26 , 40 , 41 , 44 , 45 ]. It is argued that when the regressand is bounded between two points (meaning that there is no distinct point estimate), estimation should be done via maximum likelihood rather than OLS [ 40 , 44 ]. However, in cases where respondents also state the maximum WTP and the dependent variable is not censored at zero, the regressand will be a continuous variable with a single point estimate such that the OLS technique can be applied [ 27 ].…”

A Model for Consumer Acceptance of Insect-Based Dog Foods among Adult UK Dog Owners

“…Concern and empathy for animals have been associated with a preference for and intent to purchase products produced with higher animal-welfare standards [36]. Studies in the United States [42] and Germany [43] found that pet owners were interested in farm animal welfare and willing to pay for welfare-friendly pet food. The main factors contributing to a preference for animal welfare in food products are socio-demographics, ethics and attitudes, product characteristics and public roles [44].…”