Consumers’ Attitudes towards Farm Animal Welfare and their Influence on Meat Consumption

The aim of this paper was to examine Croatian consumers’ attitudes towards meat producing farm animal welfare (AW). The survey conducted with 102 meat consumers in Zagreb revealed that consumers believe in importance of AW but most of them do not consider it when buying meat. Three segments, differing in their attitudes towards AW, were identified by using cluster analysis: the most numerous (44%) are mostly concerned about AW and they eat meat less oft en than others; the second group (37%) considers AW as an important issue, but they believe that modern food production not following high AW standards is necessary. The smallest segment (19%) is rather indifferent towards AW compared to others, and they consider taste of meat as more important than the way of its production