Animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and food safety have become topics of international concern. With the rise of friendly rearing and green consumption consciousness, consumers can use animal welfare certification labels as references to make purchase decisions. This study adopts the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as its core and incorporates variables, such as moral affection, health consciousness, and trust in certification, to discuss the thoughts of Taiwanese consumers on buying animal welfare-friendly products and the factors that affect their purchase decisions. This study will be conducive in clarifying the consumption behavioral pattern of animal welfare-friendly products, which previous literature has mentioned but not tested, thereby filling this literature gap. This study collects 653 valid questionnaires and uses the partial least square-structural equation modeling to analyze the correlations between various variables. The research findings indicate the following. (1) Consumers' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control have significant and positive influences on the behavioral intention of purchasing fresh milk with animal welfare labels. (2) Moral affection positively influences customers' behavioral intention toward fresh milk with an animal welfare label through attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. (3) Trust in certifications will enhance moral cognition and positive attitudes toward fresh milk with animal welfare labels. According to the research findings of this study, we recommend that businesses strengthen the promotion of dairy products in line with friendly rearing, environmental sustainability, and other ethical consumption concepts to generate market segregation elements.
Keywords: food labelling; food safety; health consciousness; moral affection; sustainable development goals (SDGS).