ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that higher welfare and free range label claims are an outcome of regulatory politics. It examines the degree to which free range and higher welfare label claims on Australian animal food products have shifted concerns about farmed animals’ lives from the ‘margins’ of the animal advocacy movement to the ‘mainstream’ of everyday consumer choice. The mainstreaming of higher animal welfare onto the supermarket shelves has been achieved through alliances between the supermarkets and animal welfare, and industry—or civil society-based certification groups. Ethical consumption is one strategy for expanding the range of voices and concerns in public policy discourse. Alliances between supermarkets and animal advocates to produce higher welfare labelling seemed promising, but so far they have blurred animal welfare concerns, even as they have created a bridge for animal advocacy into the mainstream.
