European meat and dairy retail distribution and supply networks: a comparative study of the current and potential markets for welfare-friendly foodstuffs in six European countries

Part II outlines generic findings about retailing practices for welfare-friendly products. Chapter 10 identifies the importance of retail brands in understanding how the market for welfare-friendly products currently operates through discussing the practices of brand management and how these relate to farm animal welfare. Two major dynamics are identified:- brand protection and assuring for minimum standards of farm animal welfare within the supply network;- positive use of farm animal welfare as a way to differentiate both product ranges and individual products.There is an overview of commercial relations between retailers, manufacturers, farmers/farmer cooperatives and NGOs/industry bodies. Chapter 11 is an overview of the particularities of the market for each of the product sectors - dairy, beef, egg, pork and chicken. Together, chapters 10 and 11 present important actors in the retail distribution and supply networks through examining both the commercial relations between different actors and how there are distinctive differences between product sectors. Chapter 12 presents summaries of the market for each study country, covering: regulation and the general interest in farm animal welfare, how the market for animal welfare-friendly products operates across individual product sectors, and what is the potential for growth in the welfare-friendly market. It explains how countries create an important cultural background for understanding why the market operates differently from country to country. Chapter 13 is a summary of major pan-European bodies and their role in regulation, and wider bodies of representation. It considers how Europe as a trading block is responding to animal welfare.Chapter 14 looks at the impact of global trade on the commercial practices presented in Chapter 10. Here we focus on the Eastern European market, pan-European buying groups, competition between EU and rest of the world, standards and labelling, global politics and health