The study aim was to identify consumer segmentation based on nonhuman animal welfare (AW) attitudes and their relationship with demographic features and willingness to pay (WTP) for welfare-friendly products (WFP) in Mexico. Personal interviews were conducted with 843 Mexican consumers who stated they purchased most of the animal products in their home. Respondents were selected using a quota sampling method with age, gender, education, and origin as quota control variables. The multivariate analysis suggested there were three clusters or consumer profiles labeled “skeptical,” “concerned,” and “ethical,” which helped explain the association between AW attitudes, some demographic variables, and WTP for WFP. This study is one of the first to address consumer profiling in Latin America, and the findings could have implications for the commercialization of WFP. Hence, customers should receive information to consider welfare innovations when deciding to purchase animal products. The growth of the WFP food market establishes an element of a far more multifaceted phenomenon of sustainable consumption and support of a new paradigm called responsible marketing in emerging markets such as Mexico.

Consumer attitudes towards farm animal welfare (FAW) are not a one-dimensional phenomenon; they entail various attitudinal and social dimensions related to ethnicity, agri-food culture, ethics, purchasing power and beliefs. Therefore, the study aimed to identify segments of South American consumers of animal products according to their attitudes towards FAW. An online survey was carried out among participants from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia (n = 2852). A factor analysis followed by a hierarchical cluster analysis identified four consumers' segments based on their attitudes towards FAW. The first corresponds to consumers ethically committed to FAW (n = 1323), the second to those committed to farmers and interested in labels (n = 215), the third to consumers interested in FAW and farmers and their efforts towards FAW (n = 993), and the fourth, associated with apathetic consumers (n = 321). Although FAW is a relatively new commercial phenomenon in South America, our results showed that concern for animals may be a universal human value, which can overcome traditional dichotomies between rich-poor or developed-undeveloped countries.