Most consumers want to buy higher-welfare products but lack the information to do so. Mandatory welfare labelling would allow market forces to drive welfare improvement by enabling informed choice.
The gap between consumer values and purchasing behavior on animal welfare is partly a product of systemic information failure. Consumers cannot assess the welfare conditions behind unlabelled products, and the absence of information defaults to lowest-cost options. Welfare labelling creates transparency that empowers consumer choice and creates market incentives for producers to improve. The Danish pig welfare label demonstrates that mandatory schemes can shift market shares toward higher-welfare products. This is not merely a consumer rights issue - it is a mechanism for harnessing market forces to improve welfare for billions of animals. Effective labelling must be mandatory (not voluntary) and independently verified to be meaningful.