Transparency in Meat Production – Consumer Perception at the Point of Sale

As a result of a large number of food scandals, societal interest in transparency in the food sector has grown considerably. Deficits have been discovered, which new legal frameworks of the EU and the German legislative body have attempted to address. Hence, the creation of transparency in the production process has been the focus of the legislation. In this context, traceability systems for animal-based foods, for instance, have been established (Regulation (EC) 178/2002). In addition to tracking and tracing, one finds in the public discussion an increasing number of demands for further information, for instance information on food safety, animal and environmental protection and generally for sustainability of the production processes for foods. This is intended as a response to the general call for more transparency or a "gläserne Produktion ". It has not been sufficiently clarified which information about the production process, and thus which level of transparency is actually desired, or can actually be processed, by consumers at the point of sale. This is related to the question of to what extent the demands for more transparency in meat production are influenced by new campaigns of many consumer organisations and NGOs, or whether these actually represent user preferences at the point of sale. In order to analyse this topic from the viewpoint of the consumer, a large-scale empirical study has been conducted. This is intended to determine what transparency expectations, in the form of information on packaged pork, consumers have, using an adaptive conjoint analysis