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Survey says most consumers rank “no growth hormones” highest

A survey of one-thousand U.S. consumers by the University of Illinois found that the number-one production practice they want in their beef, chicken, milk and eggs is “NO hormones.” University food economist and lead researcher Brenna Ellison tells Brownfield the second and third practices most desired were No GMOs and humanely raised, “We found that no growth hormones comes out as number-one no matter which product you look at. But, the ordering on non-GMO and humanely raised depends on the product type.”

She says there were differences in what consumers wanted for milk and eggs versus chicken and beef when it came, “For products like milk and eggs where animals are continual producers of the product, we found that producers placed more value on the humanely raised claim, but for things like beef and chicken meat we found that non-GMO would rate higher than humanely raised.”

Ellison says there might be a difference in how people feel about animals that are continuously producing instead of going to slaughter. At the bottom of the list of seven production practices in the survey that consumers wanted was organic.