The Role Of Humanewashing In Grocery Stores: How Welfare Labels Affect Purchasing Behavior
Background
Food companies spend considerable amounts of time and resources perfecting their packaging to maximize the chances of making a sale. As a result, supermarkets are stocked with a dizzying array of packages—some brightly colored to catch your attention, others in more subdued earth tones that imply a natural quality. The words on the packages themselves are equally fine-tuned, and many shoppers are likely used to seeing all types of labels, certifications, phrases, and marketing words—some of which are strictly regulated, but many of which are not. This issue is especially important when considering animal products, where labels make claims about the ethics of raising animals for food.
U.S. adults are concerned about the welfare of animals raised for food (e.g., ASPCA, n.d. and Thibault, et al., 2024)—and the most common source of information about animal welfare is product packaging, (ASPCA, 2023). However, packages often feature phrases like “free-range,” “humanely raised,” and “Certified Humane.” These similarly-worded phrases actually have vastly different meanings and reflect disparate standards for animal care.
In the United States, many food-related claims are strictly regulated by the Department of Agriculture (USDA), such as “USDA Organic,” while others are vetted by third-party organizations. The phrase “humanely raised” is not defined by the USDA, which instead allows animal agriculture companies to set their own definitions. Often, these definitions simply reflect standard practices used on factory farms (Negowetti, 2018). Major animal advocacy organizations like the American Society for the Prevent of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the Humane Society of the United States agree that “humanely raised” claims are essentially meaningless. As a result, “humanely raised” can be an example of what many animal advocates refer to as “humanewashing,” giving shoppers the impression that the animals used to make a product were raised and slaughtered under better conditions than they actually were.
Products featuring the “Certified Humane Raised and Handled®” logo come from producers who have agreed to meet a certain set of animal care standards defined by the non-profit Humane Farm Animal Care, including space requirements for chickens and a ban on unnecessary antibiotics. “Certified Humane” standards are more clearly defined and enforced compared to the term “humanely raised,” which is effectively undefined despite its similarity to “Certified Humane.” Even still, studies consistently show that people in the U.S. don’t know what welfare labels—such as “Certified Humane”—really mean. As a result, many animal advocates also view “Certified Humane” labels and many other welfare certifications as examples of “humanewashing.” To this end, animal advocacy groups have devoted substantial resources toward label education and litigation around false advertising.
Using an experimental design, we examined the purchasing behavior of thousands of U.S. grocery shoppers to provide much-needed data about how unverified welfare claims and certified welfare labels affect the purchase of animal products. This report also explores how price premiums for products with verified welfare claims shape purchases. Our results can allow animal advocates to better determine how to allocate resources going forward.
Method
This project measured how the presence of the phrase “Humanely Raised,” “Certified Humane” labels, and price premiums for “Certified Humane” products affect the purchase of animal products. To review the entire Methods section, including the Supplementary Materials, request the full report below. Pre-registration and study materials can be found here.
Sample
Participants were recruited through Prolific between May and June 2024. In total, 2,897 responses were included in the final dataset. Using Prolific’s screener questions, participants were limited to U.S. residents who indicated that they are the primary shopper for their household and do not follow a vegan diet.
Online Grocery Stores
Upon beginning the survey, participants were redirected to one of eight online grocery stores based on the Open Science Online Grocery (OSOG) store (Howe et al., 2022). Participants were given a hypothetical $25 to buy ingredients to make dinner for their household.
Figure 1. Screenshot of “Red Meat” Section of Grocery Store
Experimental Conditions
Animal advocates have fought hard for the inclusion of welfare labeling on animal products and are unlikely to stop these efforts any time soon. Perhaps even more relevant, animal agriculture companies can use certifications to make their products more desirable to shoppers. Because of these factors, the study was designed such that all participants were able to purchase animal products that featured a “Certified Humane” label, one of the most common indicators of animal welfare standards.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions. Three aspects of the animal products available varied across these conditions:
- Half of participants were randomly assigned to conditions that included animal products featuring the text “Humanely Raised” on their packaging, while the other half of participants did not see these products.
- Half of participants also had the option to purchase “unlabeled” animal products, which included neither a “Certified Humane” label nor “Humanely Raised” text, while the other half of participants did not see these products.
- Finally, for half of participants, “Certified Humane” products cost 25% more than “Humanely Raised” and unlabeled products (“price premium”), while the other half of participants saw “Certified Humane” products available at the same price as “Humanely Raised” and unlabeled products (“price parity”).
Every combination of these three manipulated variables—availability of unlabeled animal products, availability of “Humanely Raised” animal products, and price premium or price parity for “Certified Humane” products—comprised a different experimental condition. In research terms, this study used a 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design.
Figure 2. Animal Products Types and Price Conditions
When available, unlabeled animal products were listed first, followed by intermixed “Humanely Raised” and “Certified Humane” products. Each label variation appeared on 75 animal products, meaning stores 1 and 7 included 75 animal products, stores 2, 3, 6, and 7 contained 150 animal products, and stores 4 and 8 included 225 products.
Survey Questions
After completing the grocery shopping portion of the study, participants answered a series of survey questions. Participants were asked whether they remember seeing products with the phrases “Certified Humane” and/or “Humanely Raised” on them. They also answered multiple choice questions about their understanding of the phrases “Certified Humane” and “Humanely Raised.” Participants were also asked to report their age, state of residence, gender, race or ethnicity, household income, educational attainment, political beliefs, and diet.
Recommendations
- Educate consumers about animal welfare certifications. Shoppers don’t have a strong understanding of what animal welfare labels mean. Because of this, it can be difficult for them to tell the difference between labels that represent certain welfare standards and labels that are meaningless. Public education campaigns can alert the public to the misleading nature of many welfare claims.
- Make it easier for shoppers to know what they’re buying. Shoppers look to packaging to tell them about the welfare of the animals used for their food. Including explanations of welfare standards on packaging could help shoppers learn what welfare labels mean. Creating a single, easily recognizable, go-to welfare certification, similar to the “USDA Organic” label, could also help shoppers know what to look for.
- Demand higher welfare standards for farmed animals. Even if all animal products met welfare certification standards, there would continue to be massive amounts of farmed animal suffering. These standards may be slightly preferable to the conditions on factory farms without any animal welfare certifications, but they are not enough. As long as animals continue to be raised and killed for human consumption, advocates must continue to fight for certification organizations to improve their standards and to lobby governments to strengthen regulations.
- Work to ban deceptive welfare claims. Some advocacy organizations are working to prove that animal agriculture companies are falsely advertising their products. Combined with legislative and regulatory efforts, these approaches can help get rid of welfare claims that are little more than marketing ploys. This will enable consumers to make informed decisions about their purchases. Combined with education and clearer labeling, this could help minimize the proportion of animal products coming from animals raised with weak welfare standards. Animal advocates may be able to learn from or collaborate with climate advocates who are interested in banning “greenwashing.” Advocates may also be able to mobilize companies that use welfare certifications to lobby against competitors who use unverified welfare claims.
- Researchers should investigate how price affects the purchase of welfare certified animal products. In particular, researchers should explore how the cost of different welfare standards are passed along to consumers and if knowledge about the specific reasons for higher prices influences shoppers’ willingness to purchase these products.
- Push plant-based alternatives. Ultimately, the most effective way to minimize the suffering of farmed animals is to lower demand for animal products. Working to make plant-based products cheaper and more widely available is a key way of achieving this. Lobbying Congress, state legislatures, and the USDA for better welfare standards may be fruitful, even if it’s an uphill battle. This strategy can raise the welfare floor, while efforts to increase subsidies and investments in plant-based alternatives helps lay the infrastructure for a plant-based future.
Request The Full Report
Faunalytics strives to make as much of our data and reporting public as possible, in the interest of transparent and replicable scientific research. However, in certain cases we make the strategic decision to restrict distribution to animal advocates only, to ensure that the results will be used to benefit animals. To receive a copy of the report, please click below and tell us about yourself.
Behind The Project
Research Team
The project’s lead author was Faunalytics Research Scientist Zach Wulderk. Dr. Jo Anderson and Dr. Andie Thompkins reviewed and oversaw the work.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Vegan Grants, the Gregory J. Reiter Memorial Fund, and two anonymous donors for their generous support. We would also like to thank Erik Döring for providing his technical expertise in the creation of the experimental component of this study.
Research Terminology
At Faunalytics, we strive to make research accessible to everyone. We avoid jargon and technical terminology as much as possible in our reports. If you do encounter an unfamiliar term or phrase, check out the Faunalytics Glossary for user-friendly definitions and examples.
Research Ethics Statement
As with all of Faunalytics’ original research, this study was conducted according to the standards outlined in our Research Ethics and Data Handling Policy.
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Citations:
Wulderk, Z., Anderson, J., & Thompkins, A. (2024). The Role Of Humanewashing In Grocery Stores: How Welfare Labels Affect Purchasing Behavior. Faunalytics. https://faunalytics.org/humanewashing-in-grocery-stores/
