Don't stress the animal! Poor animal welfare and the resulting 'essence' in meat

Abstract

People are becoming increasingly concerned with how their food is produced, particularly with the rise of “big ag”. The growth of movements such as the Slow Food Movement, along with the increasing popularity of farmer’s markets, are all attributed to alleviating such concerns. The increased availability and sales of animal products with welfare claims have been linked to concerns about animal welfare. Though focus groups and interviews, we explored the attitudes of sixty-six meat consumers in Australia towards the concept of farm animal welfare. Participants of our research seem almost convinced that if an animal is, what they believe to be as, poorly treated - whether on farm, during transport or slaughter – an ‘essence’ remains within the meat and can have an impact on the consumer. Such essence may be from the un-natural feeding of grain to livestock, to the particular practice of slaughter. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that attitudes towards what constitutes as “good” animal welfare differ greatly across the meat value chain. Without the consideration of such differing attitudes and dialogue between stakeholder groups, such as producers and consumers, conflict between attitudes will remain, if not extrapolate with potentially dire consequences for meat producers and processors.