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Using the family activity of hobby stock-keeping (“petstock”) as a context, this paper aims to extend singularization theory to model the negotiations, agencies and resistances of children, parents and petstock, as they work through how animals become food within the boundaries of the family home. In doing so, the authors present an articulation of this process, deciphering the cultural biographies of petstock and leading to an understanding of the emergent array of child animal food-product preferences.

Data were collected from petstock-keeping parents through a mixture of ethnographic, in-depth interviewing and netnographic engagements in this qualitative, interpretive study; with parents offering experiential insights into animal meat and food-product socialization behaviours played out within the family environments.

The findings discuss the range of parental behaviours, motivations and activities vis-à-vis petstock, and their children’s responses, ranging from transgression to full compliance, in terms of eating home-raised animal food-products. The discussion illustrates that in the context of petstock, a precocious child food preference agency towards animal meat and food products is reported to emerge.

This research has empirical and theoretical implications for the understanding of the development of child food preference agency vis-à-vis animal food products in the context of family petstock keeping.

The research has the potential to inform policy makers around child education and food in regard to how child food preferences emerge and can inform marketers developing food-based communications aimed at children and parents.

Two original contributions are presented: an analysis of the under-researched area of how children’s food preferences towards eating animal food products develop, taking a positive child food-choice agency perspective, and a novel extension of singularization theory, theorizing the radical transformation, from animal to food, encountered by children in the petstock context.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on economics literature on antimicrobial and alternative uses in food animal production on its current state, its drivers, impacts and policy, and provides a general picture of the research for this special agricultural input and future directions for the research and policy.

Reduction of antimicrobial uses in food animal production is relevant to both preventing antimicrobial resistance and ensuring global food security. This study focuses on reviewing antimicrobial impact on global food security, particularly in farm production by documenting the main drivers, functions and alternatives of antimicrobial animal uses, comparing different approaches used in evaluating its production effects and providing recommendations for future research and policy development.

Three main approaches, controlled animal experiments, comparisons between with and without using antimicrobials at the farm level and comparisons before and after antimicrobial ban as growth promoter, have been used in measuring food security effects of antimicrobial uses in food animal production. They are, however, answering different questions with different measuring conditions. The positive production impact of antimicrobial use is often associated to its functions as a growth promoter and in preventing and treating diseases. In this review the author question the technical legitimacy for antimicrobials as a growth promoter and argue that antimicrobials should be treated as a special class of conditional and supportive input in farm production instead of using it as a normal input in its impact evaluation.

An approach of combining damage control function and disease epidemiological model instead of a simplified production function should be used in its impact evaluation including in evaluating those used as antimicrobial growth promoters.

In reducing antimicrobial uses in animal production, apart from more active adoption of the alternatives, we call for a better understanding for the decision makings of antimicrobial use in the production process including government-veterinarian-farm links.

This study examines the main issues in current economic research in antimicrobial food animal production, clarifies ambiguities in antimicrobial production functions and in different approaches used in impact evaluation, provides a roadmap for reduction of antimicrobial uses and a new approach for the policy evaluation.

Food products developed using genetically modified (GM) animals may soon be introduced in Europe and beyond. Their successful commercialisation depends on consumer acceptance, and so it is timely to review the existing literature in this respect. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A systematic review identified 42 English language peer reviewed papers assessing public opinion of GM animals associated with food production. Thematic analysis was applied to the results to identify and explain consumer attitudes.

Publication peaked in 2004, and declined thereafter. European consumers were less accepting of GM animal technology than the US and Asian consumers, although the latter reported more ethical concern. Risk and benefit perceptions, ethical concerns (e.g. related to animal welfare) may explain negative consumer attitudes towards animals in food production.

There is a lack of data on consumer attitudes to GM animals applied to food production, in particular in relation to consumers in emerging economies and developing countries. This is problematic as applications of GM animal products are about to enter the market.

There is a need to track changes in public opinion as GM food production animals are further developed. The introduction and commercialisation of applications with specific characteristics may further shape consumer attitudes.

Methods need to be developed to involve consumers and other stakeholders in shaping future applications of agri-food applications of GM animals.

The review collates existing quantitative and qualitative knowledge regarding the drivers of consumer attitudes towards GM animals used in food production using systematic review methodology.

This paper is derived from a larger scale project investigating consumer attitudes towards organic food in the UK. Presents focus group results on consumer perceptions, attitudes and behaviour in relation to two key interrelated food trends: organic food and animal welfare. The results indicate that consumers often confuse organic and free‐range products because they believe that “organic” is equivalent to “free‐range” food. Focus group discussions were conducted to identify the main beliefs and attitudes towards organic food of both organic and non‐organic food buyers. Results indicate that, although health and food safety concerns are the main motives for organic food purchases, ethical concerns, specifically in relation to standards of animal welfare, play a significant influencing role in the decision to purchase organic food. The results are consistent with parallel research into consumer concerns about animal welfare, which showed that consumers are primarily concerned about food safety issues. Furthermore, the research illustrates the central outcome that animal welfare is used by consumers as an indicator of other, more important product attributes, such as safety and the impact on health. Indeed, ethical considerations seem to motivate the purchase of organic food and free‐range products and, therefore, may be viewed as interrelated. However, such ethical frameworks are closely related, if not contingent upon, the quality of the product, which includes perceptions of higher standards of safety and healthiness. Based on the qualitative data, suggests that the organic market could take advantage of research on consumer motivation to buy free‐range products, by embodying ethical concerns as an indicator of product quality.

The purpose of this review paper is to extend the literature on animal welfare in the hospitality industry by exploring how some of the major fast-food companies have publicly addressed this issue.

The paper reviews, and reflects on, the animal welfare statements and policies posted on the Internet by five major fast-food companies, namely, Yum! Brands, Restaurant Brands International, McDonald's, Domino's Pizza Group and Subway.

The findings reveal that four interlinked themes, namely, strategic corporate commitment, a focus on supply chains, policies on specific categories of animals and food products, and auditing, illustrated the selected companies approach to animal welfare. The authors also raise a number of issues about the selected companies' approaches to animal welfare including the aspirational nature of their commitments, the emphasis on regular audits, the role of external assurance in the reporting process, the role of animal welfare pressure groups and campaigns, and the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The paper's empirical material is drawn from the corporate websites of five fast-food companies, but the paper has theoretical and practical implications and provides a platform for future research.

The paper offers a simple review of the way five major fast-food companies have addressed the issue of animal welfare.

Studies on developed economies showed that imposing taxes on animal-based foods could effectively reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions (AGHGEs), while this taxation may not be appropriate in developing countries due to the complex nutritional status across income classes. Hence, this study aims to explore optimal tax rate levels considering both emission reduction and nutrient intake, and examine the heterogenous effects of taxation across various income classes in urban and rural China.

The authors estimated the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System model to calculate the price elasticities for eight food groups, and performed three simulations to explore the relative optimal tax regions via the relationships between effective animal protein intake loss and AGHGE reduction by taxes.

The results showed that the optimal tax rate bands can be found, depending on the reference levels of animal protein intake. Designing taxes on beef, mutton and pork could be a preliminary option for reducing AGHGEs in China, but subsidy policy should be designed for low-income populations at the same time. Generally, urban residents have more potential to reduce AGHGEs than rural residents, and higher income classes reduce more AGHGEs than lower income classes.

This study fills the gap in the literature by developing the methods to design taxes on animal-based foods from the perspectives of both nutrient intake and emission reduction. This methodology can also be applied to analyze food taxes and GHGE issues in other developing countries.

This paper aims to explore ethical purchasing behaviours and attitudes, relating to the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and their brand‐extension “Freedom Food”.

A mixed methodology was adopted. This involved both in‐depth interviews with 30 consumers and a postal survey of 1,000 consumers. Beliefs, attitudes, normative and control issues were measured within the context of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Structural equation modelling was used to explore a series of dependence relationships simultaneously.

Overall, consumers' moral obligations towards food‐animals as well as consumer location are confirmed as influencing ethical brand choice. Both variables provide additional predictive capability improvements, raising the percentage of explained variance by 28 per cent to 80 per cent. The RSPCA's brand extension is clearly successful in terms of the positive, association value between the parent brand and the extended brand. However, market opportunities to increase market potential exist. These opportunities are discussed.

Despite the plethora of brand extensions amongst conventional fast‐moving consumer goods, the success of the brand extension concept remains unexplored amongst ethical products. Similarly, within the ethical consumption literature the majority of ethical research focuses either on environmental issues or Fair Trade purchasing behaviour, with much less attention given to societal concern for animal welfare. Additional originality is gained by exploring consumer purchase activities of “Freedom Food” branded meat by adopting the TPB as a theoretical framework.

While there has been increased attention to emotions and institutions, the role of denial and repression of emotions has been overlooked. We argue that not only the expression and the feeling of emotions, but also their control through denial contribute to stabilize institutional orders. The role denial plays is that of avoiding the emergence of disruptive emotions that might motivate a challenge to the status quo. Reflecting on the example of the livestock industry, we propose a theoretical model that identifies seeds for change in denied emotional contradictions in an integration of the cultural-relational and issue-based conceptions of organizational fields.

Like many other countries, a reform of school meals policies has been implemented in Portugal, wherein nutritional and health criteria are considered in the design of the public plate. Given that a large literature on school meals focus on cities seen as sites for promising transformation regarding health, resilience and sustainability, it is pertinent to examine how these policies are being received in rural areas. Similar to other vulnerable regions in southern Europe, rural areas in Portugal have been affected by depopulation, the re-localisation of public services (e.g. schools, health centres and courts of justice) to larger conurbations, a drastic reduction of farming areas and its reconversion from sites of production to sites of consumption that thrive on tourism. While research on children’s attitudes, experiences and practices in rural areas had picked up the attention of social scientists, research on children’s relations and engagements with school meals in these areas does not abound. This chapter addresses three issues: first, how the catering staff and health professionals experience children’s engagements with school meals after the policy reform; second, how the discourses of the school staff and parents around the rural and gastro-idylls contrast with the reported food practices and experiences of everyday life, and third, how the multiple engagements of children with animals, plants and other nature conflict with or are juxtaposed to the images of the rural idyll. Drawing from focus groups material with children aged between 7 and 9 years old living in the rural hinterland of an inland medium-size city in Portugal, focus groups with parents and interviews with stakeholders (e.g. school and kitchen staff, local authorities, nutritionists and catering firms) the chapter aims at contributing to a broader understanding of children lived experiences with food consumption in rural contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to assess Scottish consumers’ demand for animal welfare and organic pork. The paper also tried to answer the following questions: first, are animal-friendly pork and organic-pork complements or substitutes (competing)? Second, what is the relationship between pork products with different animal welfare labels (i.e. “freedom food” pork vs “specially selected pork”)? Third, does the demand for animal-friendly and organic pork vary with the level of deprivation of the area where consumers are living?

The dataset used in the analysis is the Kantar Worldpanel dataset for Scotland, which contains weekly data of food and drink purchases for consumption at home, covering the period 2006-2011. The panel is representative of the Scottish population and covers about 3,694 households. The linear version of the almost ideal demand system was estimated. Then, the own- and the cross-price elasticities as well as the expenditure elasticities for the 22 food categories and products were computed.

The results indicate that when the price of animal-friendly pork increases, consumers decrease their consumption of this product and substitute it by organic pork or regular pork, especially in the case of fresh pork, bacon and sausages. It was found that products with different animal welfare accreditation are substitutes in the eyes of Scottish consumers and are, therefore, competing for the market share of animal-friendly foods. The results also show that the demand for animal-friendly pork is more elastic in the most deprived areas in Scotland.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that estimates the demand for conventional, animal-friendly and organic pork using a scanner data in Scotland and controlling for the variation by area of deprivation.