Animal welfare labelling on food products is inconsistent, often misleading, and a key battleground for improving consumer ability to make welfare-informed choices.
Animal welfare labelling reform is a high-impact policy intervention that empowers consumers while creating market signals for welfare improvement. Current labelling environments mislead consumers: marketing terms like 'humane' and 'natural' are essentially unregulated, and consumers significantly overestimate the welfare standards behind common labels. Mandatory method-of-production labelling - clearly stating whether products come from cage, barn, free-range, or pasture systems - enables genuinely informed choice. Evidence from markets with better labelling shows measurable consumer welfare premiums and supply chain improvement in response.