Increasing public concern in recent decades about animal
welfare (AW) in livestock production has led to higher legal requirements
in many European countries and in the European
Union (Immink et al., 2013; Vanhonacker and Verbeke, 2014). In
the Netherlands, several market initiatives were introduced, which
set AW standards higher than the minimum legal requirements
(Oosterkamp et al., 2011; Veissier et al., 2008). In this regard, three
market segments can be distinguished along the AW spectrum:
conventional, which complies with minimum legal standards, a
middle-market segment, which supplies products that go beyond
conventional standards but do not meet organic standards, and a
top-market segment, which supplies organic products or products
with similar AW standards. This differentiation between market
segments is purely based on AW standards, and other quality aspects,
such as sustainability criteria, were not considered.