Citizens in many European countries urge that the welfare of farm animals should be improved. Policy-makers propose that this could, at least to some extent, be achieved through increased consumption of animal products produced under labeling schemes guaranteeing higher standards of animal welfare. Yet considerable uncertainties exist about the ability of the market to promote animal welfare. So far the consumption of most welfare-friendly products has been limited, and the impact of driving and limiting factors is poorly understood. Reviewing market studies, we identify the factors that have shaped the relatively successful market for grass milk in Denmark. We conclude that the positive drivers such as an appealing animal welfare attribute and animal welfare being bundled with other qualities are essentially the same as those operating in connection with less successful animal welfare-friendly products. It is therefore to be expected that other animal welfare-friendly food products marketed via “natural behaviors” in the farm animals will catch the interest of consumers. However, grass milk consumption has been supported by proper labeling, ready availability and low price premiums as well as multifaceted public support. This suggests that successful cases require the joint presence of a number of positive drivers as well as low consumption barriers.

The improvement of animal welfare is major goal of the European Union and its member states. The significance of this task is emphasized not only by its mention in the Treaty of Amsterdam, but also by the policy initiatives launched since then. Thus, it might seem that the task of improving animal welfare is a strictly governmental responsibility at national and supranational levels, but this is not the case. An important vision in the European Commission’s action plan on animal welfare is a market approach, wherein consumers, informed by improved food labelling, drive a virtuous cycle, to the benefit of producers as well as farm animals. But this approach also gives individual consumers a responsibility, since they are now expected to decide individually whether or not animal welfare should be improved. This paper undertakes a discussion of the justifiability of such transfers of responsibility from an institutional to an individual level. It is proposed that political decision-makers might share responsibility for animal welfare improvements with consumers, if they are better able to handle such a task. However, when ability and resources are the principles for a division of labour, it is also implied that political decision-makers should provide appropriate circumstances for consumer responsibility-taking. This leads to a discussion of specific ways in which such conditions could be provided, in the form of food labelling and narratives that relate consumption to political action.

When animal welfare-friendly meat products do not sell, irresponsible consumers are often blamed. The consumers claim to care about the welfare of farm animals, but when welfare-friendly products are actually offered to the consumers, most of them choose the conventional products instead. Even though there is a mismatch between attitudes and actions, and consumers indeed have responsibility for their choice, this still only presents one side of the issue. Another side worth considering is the way in which animal-derived foods are labelled and marketed to the consumer. The objective of this paper is to discuss ethical labelling with regard to the welfare of farm animals as a factor that can make a difference to the consumption of particular products. The labelling and consumption of eggs and pork in Denmark are used as cases. It is argued that the ethical labelling of eggs is better than the labelling of pork on a number of points. Compared with the labelling of pork, the labelling of eggs is found to be simpler, to have a higher level of relevance, and to facilitate the purchasing of animal welfare-friendly products. Consequently, the paper concludes that the ethical labelling of pork can be improved in these ways. Furthermore, the extent to which it may be possible to obtain results similar to those achieved for sales of eggs through an improved system of ethical labelling of pork will be discussed. One clear problem is that pork is a much less uniform product than shelf eggs, and that consumers’ expectations of the qualities of pork differ from their expectations with regard to eggs.