Hypotheses

Discuss about the Impact of Cage-Free Labeling on Consumer Sustainability Consciousness.

The cage free labeling of the chicken products in the retail stores suggests that the chickens were raised in an open and healthy condition without any cage. Such a labeling is implemented by the manufacturers of the chicken products to lure the customers into the thought that they are buying high quality and healthy products. The manufacturers also intent to show their compliance to the guidelines provided by the government or other animal welfare regulatory body in the country. This type of labeling is a marketing concept in which the manufacturers try to convince the chickens whose meat or eggs are being sold, were raised in an open farm in a healthy condition, without being cramped up in small cages. This report focuses on the effects of such labeling strategy on the consumer sustainability consciousness (Meijers, 2012). The consumers across various markets in the globe are becoming sustainability conscious due to the deteriorating health and quality of the environment and the eco-system around the globe. The sustainability consciousness of the consumers leads them to purchase the products which have minimal negative impacts on the environment or the eco-system. This report tries to analyze the possible effects of the cage-free labeling of the chicken products on the sustainability consciousness of the consumers in the corresponding market along with the ultimate profits gained by the manufacturers of these products. The report mentions several hypotheses for the research along with the methodology used for the research processes and the surveys used for the collection of data from the current and potential customers (Heng, 2013).

This section of the report defines three hypothesis statements for the research. These statements are used in the research process to gain insights into the market of operation and the effects if cage-free labeling on the consumer sustainability consciousness.

People are more likely to purchase cage free egg.

This hypothesis is based on the assumption that the people in various societies will be inclined more towards buying cage free eggs more than the normal eggs. This hypothesis can be used for the research activities in order to gain information on the feelings of the general public in various societies, towards the cage free labelling of the eggs (Van, 2014).

Sustainable conscious consumers are more likely to purchase cage free eggs.

This hypothesis assumes that the sustainability conscious consumers in various societies are more attracted towards the eggs which are labelled ‘cage free’. The research activities will analyze this hypothesis by gathering information about the opinion of the sustainability conscious consumers towards the ‘cage-free’ labelling of the eggs (Smithson, 2014).

Literature review

The cage-free labeling of the products allows the consumers to believe that the chickens were raised in a cage-free and healthy environment.

This hypothesis assumes that the cage-free labeling on the products allows the consumers to accept the fact that the chickens were raised in a healthy environment without being cramped up in any cage. This in turn allows the consumers to buy the products without any doubts regarding the quality of the products or their negative impacts on the environment (Sheehan, 2014).

The cage-free labeling is currently used as a marketing strategy for the meat products or eggs to provide a value proposition of high quality and healthy products. The companies provided chicken meat and eggs ensure the utilization of such labeling strategies for convincing the consumers that the chickens were raised in a healthy condition. The increase in the demand of the chicken meat and eggs in the current societies has causes the companies to create chicken and hen farms in the most profitable way possible. This in turn leads to the chickens or hens to be kept in cramped up cages, which is neither a healthy nor a free space. This causes the chickens to be very sick and unhealthy till they are killed for their meat. This raises a lot of complaints against the company due to animal cruelty and keeping the chickens in an unhealthy condition. The cage-free or free-range labeling of these products suggests that the chickens were raised in a cage-free environment, where they lived a healthy life. Such labeling strategies of the chicken meat or egg providers suggest that they avoid animal cruelty in their farms and provide very high quality and healthy products to the customers.

The consumers in a number of regions across the world actually believe these labeling strategies used by the companies. There are a number of companies which use these labeling strategies just to show that they are compliant with the animal welfare guidelines and to convince the consumers that the products are of high quality and healthy. But the general public in various societies fall for the labeling strategy and buy the products without gathering more information about it.

The cage-free labeling of the products also allows the consumers to perceive them to have minimal negative impacts on the environment and eco-system. This in turn allows the sustainability conscious consumers not to be worried about the negative environmental impacts. Thus the sustainability conscious consumers get assured of the absence of the negative environmental and eco-system impacts due to the consumption of the products labelled ‘cage-free’ (Heng, 2016).

Methodology

The ‘cage-free’ labelling of the products leads the customers to believe that the chickens were raised in a healthy condition. Most of the times, people assume that the labelling of the products are valid and authentic enough and assume that the chickens were actually raise in a healthy condition (Peacock, 2013).

This section of the report focuses on the methodologies used for the research of the corresponding topic.

The research of the topic will include a number of questionnaires and surveys with close-ended questions to the actual and prospect customers in the corresponding market. These questions with focus on their perception of the cage-free labeling and its impact on their sustainability consciousness (McCluskey, 2016). The research will be based on the quantitative methodologies, which will gather data from the surveys and will allow them to be measured and compared with each other.

As mentioned earlier, the data collection methodology used in the research will be through the surveys and questionnaires. The surveys will be carried out online on a number of social networking sites along with personal interviews (Kraus, 2014).

The interviews in the research process will contain a range of customers from different socioeconomic backgrounds. The surveys will also consider the sample of the consumers on the basis of their eating habits and lifestyle. This diverse collection of people going through the survey allows accurate data to be collected from the surveys and questionnaires (Jones, 2010).

The analysis of the data collected through these methodologies allows relevant information to be gathered regarding the impact of the cage-free labeling of the products on the sustainability consciousness of the consumers. The analysis technique used for the research will be the comparison of the answers provided to the survey questions by the consumers with a set of expected answers and recording their respective emotions towards cage-free labeling (Barnes, 2014). The analysis of the data gathered through the surveys will be based on the quantitative methodologies, which in turn will allow effective insights to be gained from these data.

All of these questions can be asked to the consumers to gather information about their emotions towards animal cruelty and ‘cage-free’ labeling. This information allows the research to have accurate results about the impact of ‘cage-free’ labeling on the sustainability consciousness of the consumers (Chen, 2014).

References

Barnes, W., 2014. Food Security in the Contemporary World: Making Security Sustainable. Interstate-Journal of International Affairs, 2013(1).

Chen, R.J., 2014. An integrated sustainable business and development system: Thoughts and opinions. Sustainability, 6(10), pp.6862-6871.

Heng, Y., Peterson, H.H. and Li, X., 2013. Consumers’ Preferences for Farm Animal Welfare: the Case of Laying Hen. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 38, pp.418-434.

Heng, Y., Peterson, H.H. and Li, X., 2016. Consumer Responses to Multiple and Superfluous Labels in the Case of Eggs. Journal of Food Distribution Research, 47(2).

Jones, D.R., Musgrove, M.T., Anderson, K.E. and Thesmar, H.S., 2010. Physical quality and composition of retail shell eggs. Poultry science, 89(3), pp.582-587.

Kraus, A., 2014. Environmental Impacts of the Battery Cage Industry Depicted Through Sculpture.

McCluskey, J.J., 2016, February. Changing Consumer Preferences. In 2016 Conference (60th), February 2-5, 2016, Canberra, Australia (No. 235408). Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.

Meijers, M.H. and Van Dam, Y., 2012. Sustainable food purchases in the Netherlands: the influence of consumer characteristics. Journal on Chain and Network Science, 12(2), pp.181-198.

Peacock, D.L., 2013. Market for Drug-Free Poultry: Why Robust Regulation of Animal Raising Claims Is the Right Prescription to Combat Antibiotic Resistance, The. J. Food L. & Pol’y, 9, p.223.

Sheehan, K.B. and Lee, J., 2014. What’s Cruel About Cruelty Free: An Exploration of Consumers, Moral Heuristics, and Public Policy. Journal of Animal Ethics, 4(2), pp.1-15.

Smithson, K.R., 2014. Effect of Information Displays on Cage-free and Organic Egg Sales: Evidence from Two Field Experiments.

Van Wilgenburg, H., 2014. An Exploration of Chicken and Egg Sustainability on Dalhousie University’s Halifax Campus.