Insights on animal welfare and online information as drivers of sustainable dietary habits

Animal health and welfare (AHW) has become a crucial societal concern with important implications for agricultural production and actors along affected value chains. At the same time, agri-food value chains are undergoing a digital transformation. Digital technologies facilitate an advanced communication flow within the food system and exhibit the opportunity to provide consumers with desired information about production processes for animal products. Consumers' perceptions, purchasing decisions and dietary habits ultimately influence the development of sustainable and resilient food systems. To address these current and multidisciplinary topics, we investigate the importance of AHW issues during German consumers' food purchases and the association of online information-seeking behaviour with dietary changes. Using factor analysis and ordinal logistic regressions, we find that besides the more commonly considered consciousness in herd management-related AHW information, consumers also respect ethical well-being considerations. In addition to online information gathering behaviour and access, awareness of ethical and management-related AHW aspects is significantly associated with dietary changes. This emphasises the importance of advanced AHW-related communication strategies and enhanced digital information provision to promote AHW sensitivity, to assist informed purchasing decisions aligned with personal values, and to foster responsible consumption behaviour and sustainable transformation in agri-food systems. • Study of 2000 consumers on animal welfare, information access, and dietary change. • Consumer consciousness of herd health management. • Ethical perception of animal well-being positively related to dietary changes. • Online information gathering and smartphone access positively affect dietary changes. • Sustainable agri-food value chain transformation with digital information provision.