Consumers and future Veterinarians: Attitudes of Veterinary students toward welfare–friendly meat products and labelling in Türkiye
Abstract
The animal welfare concept is gaining more importance at the international level in the production process of animal products, to ensure sustainability, ethical production, and food safety. Consumers’ sensitivity and approach to animal welfare affect their animal product preferences directly. The present study aimed to uncover the attitudes of veterinary faculty students in Türkiye toward meat products produced considering animal welfare and welfare–friendly labeling and the factors affecting this. To this end, this cross–sectional study was designed by applying a questionnaire to 256 participants. The questionnaire form consisted of 10 sociodemographic questions and 29 5-point Likert– type questions. Explanatory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were used along with the varimax rotation method. As a result of these analyses, the Welfare–Friendly Meat Product Scale (WFP–Cronbach alpha: 0.951) and the Welfare–Friendly Labeling Scale (WFL–Cronbach alpha: 0.960) were created. The total average score of the participants from the scales was found to be 71.85 (min: 17, max: 85) for WFP and 50.28 (min: 12, max: for WFL. It was found that women were more sensitive to animal welfare and had higher intentions to purchase ethical products compared to men. Only 1% of participants thought that consumers were responsible for ensuring animal welfare. Interestingly, participants thought that fish had more welfare problems than sheep, goats, and turkeys. It was also found that meat prices had a significant impact on participants’ consumption preferences (participants said they would consume more red meat and less chicken if their prices were the same).
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