Consumer perception of eggs

Animal welfare is an increasingly important factor in the purchasing decisions of consumers (Napolitano et al., 2010), sustained despite the prevailing recession (IGD, 2011). Recent surveys indicate almost half of UK consumers surveyed rated animal welfare as either ‘very important’ or ‘extremely important’ (IGD, 2011), whilst 76% (Defra, 2011) and 85% (Clonan et al., 2010) rated welfare as ‘an important’ issue. In fact, farm animal welfare was rated the single most important sustainability related food issue for British consumers (IGD, 2011; Defra, 2011), above health or safety concerns, and over 70% of U.S citizens surveyed reported ‘concern’ for farm animal welfare (Norwood and Lusk, 2011a).Within Europe, Dutch and Danish (77%) and Belgian and German (73%) citizens expressed the highest concern for laying hen welfare (European Commission, 2005), and overall laying hens were identified as the animals most in need of animal welfare improvements by EU citizens. Consumers will pay for legislative improvements in animal welfare, especially for eggs (Bennett, 1996) where consumers are better informed about initiatives related to welfare and there is no substitute for the product (Vanhonacker and Verbeke, 2009).