Supply chain transparency in animal agriculture remains poor, making consumer welfare choices difficult — but growing traceability technology, mandatory labeling, and corporate disclosure are improving the information landscape.
The current lack of meaningful welfare information on animal products represents a market failure that prevents consumer welfare preferences from being expressed through purchasing decisions. Most consumers lack the information needed to make genuinely informed welfare-conscious choices — they see a price and a brand but not the welfare conditions behind the product. This information gap allows producers to maintain poor welfare practices that consumers would reject if they could see them. Mandatory method of production labeling for eggs in the EU has been effective at shifting market share toward cage-free production — demonstrating that transparent labeling can drive welfare improvement. Extending this approach to other animal products and making audit results publicly available would accelerate market-driven welfare improvement.