1. Introduction
Sustainability is a core priority for policymakers and industry leaders, shaping decisions across various industries and economies (Caccialanza et al., Reference Caccialanza, Cerrato and Galli2023; Sharma et al., Reference Sharma, Kannan, Darbari and Jha2022). Efforts to advance sustainability have been particularly noteworthy in the cattle/beef industry, where sustainable practices can generate economic, environmental, and operational impacts (Broom, Reference Broom2010, Reference Broom2021; Buckley et al., Reference Buckley, Newton, Gibbs, McConnel and Ehrmann2019; Osman et al., Reference Osman, Schroeder, Lancaster and White2024). As businesses assess how goods are produced, processed, and marketed, industry production systems have emerged as an important arena for integrating sustainability in business operations (Ashby et al., Reference Ashby, Leat and Hudson-Smith2012; Caccialanza et al., Reference Caccialanza, Cerrato and Galli2023; Midan, 2021). The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines sustainability as balancing human needs, environmental quality, economic viability, and quality of life for farmers and society (USDA, 2024). In the literature, sustainability is framed as balancing across food security, economic impacts, and environmental management (Broom, Reference Broom2021; Buckley et al., Reference Buckley, Newton, Gibbs, McConnel and Ehrmann2019; Caccialanza et al., Reference Caccialanza, Cerrato and Galli2023; Casagranda et al., Reference Casagranda, Wiśniewska-Paluszak, Paluszak, De Mores, Moro, Malafaia, De Azevedo and Zhang2023; Garnett, Reference Garnett2013; Osman et al., Reference Osman, Schroeder, Lancaster and White2024; Rotz et al., Reference Rotz, Asem-Hiablie, Place and Thoma2019; U.S. Beef Industry Sustainability Framework, 2024; USDA, 2024).
Rising concerns over possible environmental impacts, animal welfare, and food affordability have been central in the cattle/beef industry discussions surrounding sustainable food systems (Broom, Reference Broom2010, Reference Broom2021; Buckley et al., Reference Buckley, Newton, Gibbs, McConnel and Ehrmann2019; Casagranda et al., Reference Casagranda, Wiśniewska-Paluszak, Paluszak, De Mores, Moro, Malafaia, De Azevedo and Zhang2023; Gordon, Reference Gordon2020; Greenwood, Reference Greenwood2021; International Food Information Council (IFIC), 2022; Schmiess and Lusk, Reference Schmiess and Lusk2022; Schroeder et al., Reference Schroeder, Osman, Lancaster and White2023; USRSB, 2022). Furthermore, consumer demand for sustainable food options has increased (International Food Information Council (IFIC), 2022; Midan, 2021; Van Loo et al., Reference Van Loo, Caputo, Nayga and Verbeke2014) and the importance of beef industry sustainability efforts has been noted (Gordon, Reference Gordon2020; Greenwood, Reference Greenwood2021). Despite the increased attention, research on how consumers evaluate, prioritize, and perceive sustainability components of environmental, social, and economic dimensions remains fragmented.
The cattle/beef industry accounts for a high proportion of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and land usage compared to other livestock systems (Cusack et al., Reference Cusack, Kazanski, Hedgpeth, Chow, Cordeiro, Karpman and Ryals2021; Gerber et al., Reference Gerber, Steinfeld, Henderson, Mottet, Opio, Dijkman, Falcucci and Tempio2013; Pelton et al., Reference Pelton, Kazanski, Keerthi, Racette, Gennet, Springer, Yacobson, Wironen, Ray, Johnson and Schmitt2024; Poore and Nemecek, Reference Poore and Nemecek2018), but it also contributes substantially to supporting livelihoods, rural economies, and essential food nutrients and security (Beef, 2023; English et al., Reference English, Popp, Alward and Thoma2020; Pelton et al., Reference Pelton, Kazanski, Keerthi, Racette, Gennet, Springer, Yacobson, Wironen, Ray, Johnson and Schmitt2024). Over time, the beef industry has adopted several initiatives to address various beef sustainability components. For example, the USDA has proposed or approved various beef sustainability aspects for certification and adoption, such as a low-carbon beef verification process and Non-Hormone Treated Cattle (NHTC) (USDA AMS, 2023), Livestock Risk ProtectionFootnote 1 (USDA RMA, 2025a, 2025b), and Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP)Footnote 2 (USDA FSA, 2025). In addition, organizations like the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (USRSB)Footnote 3 advocate industry initiatives to ensure “sustainable beef comes from profitable farmers, ranchers, and businesses committed to optimizing resources and caring for animals, employees, and communities” (U.S. Beef Industry Sustainability Framework, 2024, p.1). How these strategies align with consumer preferences is an important consideration. Consumer preferences influence market demand, producer incentives, and overall policy effectiveness (Broom, Reference Broom2010, Reference Broom2021; Caputo and Lusk, Reference Caputo and Lusk2020; Luke & Tonsor, Reference Luke and Tonsor2025a; Van Loo et al., Reference Van Loo, Caputo, Nayga and Verbeke2014).
Although these strategies offer producers opportunities to adopt more sustainable production methods, adoption and verification costs must be compensated with higher output prices to make them economically viable. Understanding consumer preferences is crucial because unpopular sustainability programs risk harming producer profitability and degrading policy efficacy (Caputo and Lusk, Reference Caputo and Lusk2020). Previous studies reveal that consumers are concerned about animal welfare (Broom, Reference Broom2021; Lusk and Norwood, Reference Lusk and Norwood2011; Midan, 2021; Osman et al., Reference Osman, Schroeder, Lancaster and White2024), food safety (Lister et al., Reference Lister, Tonsor, Brix, Schroeder and Yang2017; Schroeder et al., Reference Schroeder, Osman, Lancaster and White2023; Tonsor et al., Reference Tonsor, Mintert and Schroeder2010), and hormone and antibiotic use (Sneeringer et al., Reference Sneeringer, Macdonald, Key, McBride and Mathews2015; Yang et al., Reference Yang, Raper and Lusk2020), but their willingness to support particular policy tools, including taxes, subsidies, or regulatory mandates, remains unclear and context-dependent (Biedny et al., Reference Biedny, Malone and Lusk2020; Luke & Tonsor, 2025; Lusk and Norwood, Reference Lusk and Norwood2011; Tonsor and Wolf, Reference Tonsor and Wolf2011; Yang et al., Reference Yang, Fang, Thompson and Nayga2024). Moreover, food sustainability preferences are heterogeneous across consumers (Li et al., Reference Li, Jensen, Clark and Lambert2016). Making informed decisions about the production, processing, and marketing of sustainable beef requires understanding market potential for products possessing various sustainability claims as revealed by consumer preferences. This highlights the need for evidence-based insights into consumer beef sustainability preferences among the three dimensions to inform industry and policy deliberations.
This study directly addresses this gap by offering empirical information gleaned from a nationally representative U.S. consumer survey identifying and ranking beef sustainability preference strategies. Using an online survey of a sample of 3,001 U.S. consumers and a generalized ordered logit model, the study quantifies consumer preferences for beef sustainability across the three major pillars of economic, social, and environmental dimensions. In particular, we rank consumer importance preferences for various taxes, subsidies, prices, and voluntary efforts to enhance beef sustainability. We also measure how consumer demographic traits are associated with preference rankings across economic, social, and environmental sustainability dimensions. By explicitly analyzing consumer preferences toward producer-led sustainability initiatives, policy interventions, and investments, the study provides empirical evidence of which approaches are most likely to gain consumer acceptance, thereby improving policy design, producer incentives, and the legitimacy of various sustainability initiatives.
This study contributes to the literature on food sustainability by diving deeper into specific consumer preferences for attaining various economic, environmental, and social dimensions of beef production in more depth than existing literature. Results provide ranked preferences on how consumers prefer to advance each dimension. Furthermore, this study frames statements for consumers to rank that include both opportunities to attain a particular goal, but with noted trade-offs that would occur when they are apparent. Because many sustainability goals can only be achieved through trade-offs with other dimensions, the statements we place in front of respondents note such trade-offs. For example, we have statements including (i) Require producers to certify environmental impact, increasing beef prices, and (ii) Government subsidizes cattle-fed grass diets, increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The first activity helped the respondent recognize a trade-off of certifying environmental goals, but having higher beef prices due to added costs producers would incur to certify. The second activity addresses preferences for grass-fed beef but notes the increased gas emissions that would result relative to existing production systems. Such preference rankings make the respondent aware of trade-offs that are apparent in the statements. Adding apparent trade-offs is not common in existing preference ranking literature, but we feel immensely important to help frame the reality of noted trade-offs. We find that respondents, while heterogeneous in their preferences, support producer-led initiatives in ensuring sustainable practices in beef production. On the other hand, respondents do not generally support taxes or subsidy payments as policy tools to enhance beef sustainability. Results provide important guidance to both the cattle and beef industry, as well as informing policy discussions surrounding beef sustainability.
2. Background: Pillars of sustainability and core issues
Sustainability presents a multifaceted challenge that requires input from diverse fields, viewpoints, and stakeholders. The beef industry has debated sustainability metrics for years, with discussion including concerns regarding greenhouse gas emissions (Garnett, Reference Garnett2009; Luke and Tonsor, Reference Luke and Tonsor2024, Reference Luke and Tonsor2025b; Pelton et al., Reference Pelton, Kazanski, Keerthi, Racette, Gennet, Springer, Yacobson, Wironen, Ray, Johnson and Schmitt2024), biodiversity loss (Buckley et al., Reference Buckley, Newton, Gibbs, McConnel and Ehrmann2019), water and land usage (Gerbens-Leenes et al., Reference Gerbens-Leenes, Mekonnen and Hoekstra2013; Osman et al., Reference Osman, Schroeder, Lancaster and White2024; Poore and Nemecek, Reference Poore and Nemecek2018; USRSB, 2022; Xu et al., Reference Xu, Sharma, Shu, Lin, Ciais, Tubiello, Smith, Campbell and Jain2021), human health (Gosnell et al., Reference Gosnell, Emard and Hyde2021; Smith et al., Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024; USRSB, 2022), animal welfare (Broom, Reference Broom2010, Reference Broom2021; Lusk and Norwood, Reference Lusk and Norwood2011; Schroeder et al., Reference Schroeder, Osman, Lancaster and White2023), and producer profitability (Casagranda et al., Reference Casagranda, Wiśniewska-Paluszak, Paluszak, De Mores, Moro, Malafaia, De Azevedo and Zhang2023; Griffith and Boyer, Reference Griffith and Boyer2021; USRSB, 2022).
In part, the complexity of sustainability stems from its multifaceted attributes, underscoring the need for more information ranking consumer preferences across alternative industry strategies and policies. Furthermore, the adoption of specific sustainability practices by producers may increase costs, which in turn lead to higher retail beef prices (Luke and Tonsor, Reference Luke and Tonsor2024). Also, enhancing one sustainability metric may directly contradict or detract from another (Pelletier et al., Reference Pelletier, Pirog and Rasmussen2010; Poore and Nemecek, Reference Poore and Nemecek2018; Sneeringer et al., Reference Sneeringer, Macdonald, Key, McBride and Mathews2015). For example, grass finishing cattle, a social preference for some consumers, leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions per pound of beef produced (Pelletier et al., Reference Pelletier, Pirog and Rasmussen2010), an environmental concern. Restricting antibiotic use, a social preference, can increase animal mortality (McBride et al., Reference McBride, Key and Mathews2008) and production costs, leading to higher wholesale and retail prices and decreased output (Sneeringer et al., Reference Sneeringer, Macdonald, Key, McBride and Mathews2015), potentially worsening economic sustainability. Some studies argue that reducing meat consumption is necessary to attain animal welfare and environmental sustainability goals (Garnett, Reference Garnett2009, Reference Garnett2013). This suggests that improving affordability and expanding consumer access may conflict with environmental and social objectives if lower prices increase consumption and, in turn, total emissions based on this argument. Such trade-offs of a consumer desiring a specific sustainability assurance relative to having to pay a higher price for the product or competing with another sustainability measure are important to build into preference ranking assessments, as consumers may not readily recognize such trade-offs if not explicitly stated in preference options. For instance, Aboagye et al. (Reference Aboagye, Cordeiro, McAllister and Ominski2021) emphasize persistent knowledge gaps and stress the need for further research to better understand the trade-offs among beef sustainability strategies, particularly between environmental goals and productivity-enhancing technologies (PETs), including impacts on resource use, food safety, hormone use, animal welfare, and prices.
Numerous interpretations of sustainability exist, with the common understanding that it involves balancing economic, social, and environmental dimensions (USDA, 2024). These pillars play a crucial role in establishing the necessary conditions for ensuring a sustainable beef industry (Beef, 2023; FAO, 2011; USRSB, 2022). The central structure of the sustainability framework revolves around these foundational pillars, each addressing various key issues.
2.1. Environmental pillar
While a substantial body of literature has examined environmental aspects of beef sustainability, results are somewhat fragmented, focusing largely on the environmental impacts of cattle/beef production, particularly greenhouse gas emissions and resource (land and water) use (Broom, Reference Broom2021; Casagranda et al., Reference Casagranda, Wiśniewska-Paluszak, Paluszak, De Mores, Moro, Malafaia, De Azevedo and Zhang2023; Gerbens-Leenes et al., Reference Gerbens-Leenes, Mekonnen and Hoekstra2013; Luke and Tonsor, Reference Luke and Tonsor2024, Reference Luke and Tonsor2025a; Pelletier et al., Reference Pelletier, Pirog and Rasmussen2010; Pelton et al., Reference Pelton, Kazanski, Keerthi, Racette, Gennet, Springer, Yacobson, Wironen, Ray, Johnson and Schmitt2024; Schmiess and Lusk, Reference Schmiess and Lusk2022; USRSB, 2022; Xu et al., Reference Xu, Sharma, Shu, Lin, Ciais, Tubiello, Smith, Campbell and Jain2021) and consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for various environmental attributes (Ishaq et al., Reference Ishaq, Kolady and Grebitus2023; Li et al., Reference Li, Jensen, Clark and Lambert2016; Van Loo et al., Reference Van Loo, Caputo, Nayga and Verbeke2014; Yang et al., Reference Yang, Fang, Thompson and Nayga2024). Relative to plant-based foods, Parlasca and Qaim (Reference Parlasca and Qaim2022) and Poore and Nemecek (Reference Poore and Nemecek2018) found that beef production has a greater environmental impact and is one of the most resource-intensive sectors. These impacts have positioned the beef industry at the center of policy discussions on environmental conservation and sustainable agriculture (Casagranda et al., Reference Casagranda, Wiśniewska-Paluszak, Paluszak, De Mores, Moro, Malafaia, De Azevedo and Zhang2023; Parlasca and Qaim, Reference Parlasca and Qaim2022).
Livestock production occupies about 70% of all agricultural land and 40% of cropland, and animal-based products account for more than 25% of human freshwater footprint (Gerbens-Leenes et al., Reference Gerbens-Leenes, Mekonnen and Hoekstra2013; Mottet and Tempio, Reference Mottet and Tempio2017; Parlasca and Qaim, Reference Parlasca and Qaim2022; Poore and Nemecek, Reference Poore and Nemecek2018) and about 66% of food-related greenhouse gases (Parlasca and Qaim, Reference Parlasca and Qaim2022; Poore and Nemecek, Reference Poore and Nemecek2018; Springmann et al., Reference Springmann, Clark, Mason-D’Croz, Wiebe, Bodirsky, Lassaletta, de Vries, Vermeulen, Herrero, Carlson, Jonell, Troell, DeClerck, Gordon, Zurayk, Scarborough, Rayner, Loken, Fanzo and Willett2018; Xu et al., Reference Xu, Sharma, Shu, Lin, Ciais, Tubiello, Smith, Campbell and Jain2021). Beef is considered to have the largest land and water needs per unit of protein among animal-source foods, mostly due to large grazing systems (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024) and low feed conversion efficiency (Parlasca and Qaim, Reference Parlasca and Qaim2022). Smith et al. (Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024) estimated that about 654 million acres in the U.S. are used for pasture and open-range grazing, compared with about 391.5 million acres of cropland, and as a result, it plays a critical role in land sustainability. Cattle production also contributes notably to methane emissions in agriculture, primarily due to enteric fermentation (Luke and Tonsor, Reference Luke and Tonsor2024; US EPA, 2024).
Despite challenges, the beef industry has established goals to increase environmental beef sustainability in the U.S. The USDA authorized a low-carbon beef program in 2021, defining it as beef that emits at least 10% less greenhouse gas emissions over its lifetime compared to the industry baseline (USDA AMS, 2023). In a similar vein, the USRSB has set an industry target to decrease GHG emissions by 10% per pound of beef for U.S. feedlots by 2030 (USRSB, 2022). Senate bill (S.4056 – EMIT LESS Act of 2024) was proposed in March 2024 to expand research to reduce emissions from feed additives and promote measures that lower cattle emissions (EMIT LESS Act of, 2024; Luke and Tonsor, Reference Luke and Tonsor2024). Thus, the industry is focused on preserving water quantity and quality, conserving and improving grazing lands, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from cattle production, and striving to meet USDA-verified baselines for beef production (FAO, 2011; USRSB, 2022). Our study focuses on exploring the trade-offs among these different environmental strategies and their impacts on prices to garner consumer preferences for these strategies, including voluntary programs, labeling, government payments, and taxation to achieve various goals.
2.2. Social pillar
Social sustainability in beef production has not received a lot of attention relative to the other two pillars, in part because it is more challenging to measure (Gosnell et al., Reference Gosnell, Emard and Hyde2021; Smith et al., Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024). Social sustainability is complex (Gosnell et al., Reference Gosnell, Emard and Hyde2021). Smith et al. (Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024) defined beef industry social sustainability as a pillar that fosters the social well-being of affected groups, including ranchers, workers, consumers, and other stakeholders. However, concerns have been raised that the beef industry may fall short of components of this goal, elevating public concern (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024). For instance, Gosnell et al. (Reference Gosnell, Emard and Hyde2021) and Telford and Kindy (Reference Telford and Kindy2020) noted that the COVID-19 pandemic brought heightened media attention to the disproportionate effects on meatpacking plant workers, many of whom were considered to belong to minority groups. In addition, national media and other studies (Gosnell et al., Reference Gosnell, Emard and Hyde2021) have also highlighted conflicts within agricultural communities, such as tensions between ranchers and public land managers. Notwithstanding, Smith et al. (Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024) have demonstrated the role of cattle ranching in supporting recreation and tourism, especially in the Western U.S. (Sayre et al., Reference Sayre, Carlisle, Huntsinger, Fisher and Shattuck2012), preserving local ways of life and helping reduce rural out-migration (Broom, Reference Broom2021).
The social pillar of sustainability in the cattle/beef industry encompasses issues related to animal welfare (Lusk and Norwood, Reference Lusk and Norwood2011; Osman et al., Reference Osman, Schroeder, Lancaster and White2024), antibiotic/hormone use (Sneeringer et al., Reference Sneeringer, Macdonald, Key, McBride and Mathews2015), food safety (Beef, 2023; Ortez et al., Reference Ortez, Widmar, Thompson and Brad Kim2022; Schroeder et al., Reference Schroeder, Osman, Lancaster and White2023), human health/welfare (FAO, 2011; Gosnell et al., Reference Gosnell, Emard and Hyde2021; Ortez et al., Reference Ortez, Widmar, Thompson and Brad Kim2022; Smith et al., Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024), and societal values (Boogaard et al., Reference Boogaard, Oosting and Bock2008). Among these, animal welfare and the use of antibiotics and hormones are considered among the most compelling aspects of beef sustainability for producers and consumers, often shaping perceptions and trust in the beef sector (Broom, Reference Broom2021; Clark et al., Reference Clark, Stewart, Panzone, Kyriazakis and Frewer2016; Lusk and Norwood, Reference Lusk and Norwood2011; Sneeringer et al., Reference Sneeringer, Macdonald, Key, McBride and Mathews2015). Broom (Reference Broom2021) revealed that about 95% of EU consumers indicated that farm animal welfare is very important to them in beef purchasing decisions. In the U.S., retailers are concerned about animal welfare issues due to consumer pressure that may affect demand (Broom, Reference Broom2010). Sneeringer et al. (Reference Sneeringer, Macdonald, Key, McBride and Mathews2015) revealed that antibiotic use in livestock affects both production and consumer demand, as public awareness and concern have increased. They found that over 60% of U.S. consumers were willing to pay $0.05, and 37% a $1 more per pound for meat raised without antibiotics. This suggests that restricting antibiotic use, whether through policy or voluntary measures, could have economically important implications for the livestock industry.
As our study focuses on consumer preference rankings among animal welfare, antibiotic/hormone use, and prices, policy tools and/or industry initiatives will be critical for the long-term success of social sustainability efforts. Not accounting for social preferences may undermine otherwise well-designed environmental or economic strategies (Boogaard et al., Reference Boogaard, Oosting and Bock2008; Gosnell et al., Reference Gosnell, Emard and Hyde2021), underscoring the need for empirical evidence on how consumers evaluate and make trade-offs among sustainability dimensions.
2.3. Economic pillar
The economic aspects of beef sustainability serve as an important pillar in the industry, as cattle/beef production supports a protein source, rural livelihoods, and national food security (Beef, 2023; English et al., Reference English, Popp, Alward and Thoma2020; Pelton et al., Reference Pelton, Kazanski, Keerthi, Racette, Gennet, Springer, Yacobson, Wironen, Ray, Johnson and Schmitt2024). At the same time, the economic pillar of sustainability in the beef industry is also multidimensional, and relatively little research has been done on this construct relative to other sustainability dimensions (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024). The economic importance of the beef industry is paramount, as it contributes billions of dollars annually to the U.S. agricultural economy and provides direct and indirect income for a large share of producers (Beef, 2023; USDA ERS, 2025). Hence, ensuring the long-term economic viability of the beef sector is a pivotal concern for producers, consumers, and policymakers when evaluating sustainability strategies (Broom, Reference Broom2021; Osman et al., Reference Osman, Schroeder, Lancaster and White2024; Tonsor et al., Reference Tonsor, Lusk and Schroeder2021).
More than 800,000 cattle operations are located across the U.S., accounting for 30% of all farm operations in the country (Beef, 2023; English et al., Reference English, Popp, Alward and Thoma2020). The U.S. beef industry, which is the largest single sector in agriculture, generates roughly 18% of total agricultural commodity revenues in the U.S. economy (English et al., Reference English, Popp, Alward and Thoma2020). Economic activity tied to beef production and processing in the U.S. accounted for $167 billion in sales in 2016, creating over 721,500 jobs nationwide (English et al., Reference English, Popp, Alward and Thoma2020). It generated the largest share of agricultural cash receipts in 2024, totaling $ 112.1 billion, or 22% of all agricultural commodity receipts (USDA ERS, 2025). These activities collectively contributed more than $30 billion in added value to the U.S. economy in 2016 (English et al., Reference English, Popp, Alward and Thoma2020, USDA ERS 2025). However, from pasture to plate, beef production is a complex industry that involves interactions between many supply chain participants (Shear and Pendell, Reference Shear and Pendell2020). Furthermore, financial stability for beef producers requires resilience to market shocks (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024). At the same time, increasing beef prices and competition from plant-based protein alternatives (Tonsor et al., Reference Tonsor, Lusk and Schroeder2021) create additional pressure on domestic beef demand (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024).
The economic facet of sustainability includes pursuing producer profitability while striving to enhance social and environmental dimensions (Beef, 2023). However, a key challenge facing economic sustainability is balancing production costs, beef prices, producer profitability (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Metcalf, Metcalf, Yung, Swinger, Cummins, Chaffin, Shuver and Slattery2024), and risk management (Caccialanza et al., Reference Caccialanza, Cerrato and Galli2023). Technological innovation is proposed as a solution to sustainability trade-offs, as advances in production technologies, genetics, and management practices can reduce both production costs (leading to reduced beef prices) and greenhouse gas emissions per unit of meat produced (Capper, Reference Capper2011; Day et al., Reference Day, Schroeder, McAtee, Betts and Renter2025). Thus, technological innovation helps align economic and environmental objectives (Alston et al., Reference Alston, Beddow and Pardey2009; Capper, Reference Capper2011; Day et al., Reference Day, Schroeder, McAtee, Betts and Renter2025). Alston et al. (Reference Alston, Beddow and Pardey2009) show that investments in agricultural R&D yield high returns, while Capper (Reference Capper2011) argues that efficiency-enhancing technologies reduce resource use and waste per unit of beef produced. Furthermore, Aboagye et al. (Reference Aboagye, Cordeiro, McAllister and Ominski2021) identify a fundamental trade-off in the beef industry whereby PETs improve production efficiency, lower unit costs, and support lower beef prices. However, negative consumer perceptions regarding PETs’ environmental, animal welfare, and food safety implications can limit their effectiveness in advancing sustainability objectives.
Like any business, farm and ranch profitability is essential to sustainability, as highlighted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (FAO, 2012). Without financial viability, environmental sustainability is not possible. Our study focuses on the interactions and trade-offs between economic strategies, such as technology, risk, local production, efficiency, and price, which have not been extensively studied together in the literature.
3. Methods
3.1. Experimental design
To evaluate consumer preferences for environmental, social, and economic beef sustainability strategies, we administered an online survey using a modified version of a drag-and-drop ranking task in which U.S. consumers ranked strategies from most to least important. Drag-and-drop rankings is a common technique in assessing consumer preferences for various reasons: the ability to evaluate trade-offs, completeness of responses, and quality of responses (Blasius, Reference Blasius2012; Neuhofer and Lusk, Reference Neuhofer and Lusk2021). This approach follows similar applications in the literature, including Schroeder et al. (Reference Schroeder, Osman, Lancaster and White2023) and Tonsor (Reference Tonsor2023) for beef product preferences, and Neuhofer and Lusk (Reference Neuhofer and Lusk2021) for chicken purchase decisions. This approach is not a traditional best-worst scaling questionnaire, which requires respondents to repeatedly identify the most and least preferred items from multiple choice sets (Caputo and Lusk, Reference Caputo and Lusk2020; Finn and Louviere, Reference Finn and Louviere1992; Lusk and Briggeman, Reference Lusk and Briggeman2009; Osman et al., Reference Osman, Schroeder, Lancaster and White2024). This method has participants rank all attributes in a two-step, intuitive task.
Blasius (Reference Blasius2012) compared methods for obtaining rankings in web surveys and found the drag-and-drop method to be superior for response time, visualization of choices, and completeness in responses. We employed this method in a detailed survey on beef sustainability, effectively balancing survey complexity and respondent fatigue, thus improving response quality (Galesic and Bosnjak, Reference Galesic and Bosnjak2009). This method forces respondents to make trade-offs by choosing the most important and least preferred issues, unlike a Likert scale, where respondents only provide importance of each item individually without ranking them (Heo et al., Reference Heo, Kim, Park and Back2022). The trade-off of selecting the three most and least preferred is that we receive less separation in preference levels compared to full best-worst scaling (Schroeder et al., Reference Schroeder, Osman, Lancaster and White2023). However, a full best-worst scaling questionnaire increases the complexity of the survey and the time needed for respondents to complete the task, increasing respondent fatigue and reducing the quality of responses (Chrzan and Peitz, Reference Chrzan and Peitz2019).
In our modified drag-and-drop framework, respondents were presented with nine statements (Table 1) for each pillar and asked to select “three most important” and “three least important,” thereby capturing their relative preferences within each pillar. After the respondents selected their three most important items, the remaining six statements were presented again, and the respondents selected the three least important from those. This two-step design was optimized for mobile devices to ensure ease of answering on small screens, given the prevalent use of cell phones for online surveys (Cunningham et al., Reference Cunningham, Neighbors, Bertholet and Hendershot2013; Shaw, Reference Shaw2026). The order of each pillar in the general survey was in three separate blocks, where respondents were randomly assigned to one block. The ordering of the nine statements in each pillar (question set) was randomized across respondents.
Beef sustainability options used in the study
Specifically, respondents were asked, “How do you feel the environmental impacts of producing beef should be managed? (Select the three (3) most important from the list below),” “How do you feel the social aspects of beef production should be managed? (Select the three (3) most important from the list below),” and “How do you prefer to sustain cattle producer profitability? (Select the three (3) most preferred from the list below).”
The items in each pillar were selected based on literature and expert consultations. Selecting specific sustainability options for respondents to rank is a challenging task given the broad and encompassing nature of sustainability dimensions. The trade-off of survey complexity relative to presenting all possible alternatives was addressed by selecting nine of the most relevant and prevalent topics surrounding beef sustainability in the U.S. based on published literature and industry initiatives. Table 1 lists the specific beef sustainability preferences respondents were asked to rank with associated sources for the sets of attributes.
3.2. Econometric model
An indirect utility function grounded in Lancaster’s theory of consumer demand was specified to model consumer preferences for beef sustainability strategies (Lancaster, Reference Lancaster1966). Following a random utility theory (McFadden, Reference McFadden and Zarembka1974), consumers choose products with desired attributes that maximize their utility, which can be expressed as:
$U_{ij}=V_{it}+\varepsilon _{it}$
where U ij is the utility individual i obtains from the j th alternative, V ij is the observed component of the utility determined by the j th alternative attributes, and ϵ it represents the stochastic unobserved component of the utility. When the choices are rank-ordered, individual i ranks are reflected in the order of the U ij . Assuming the observed component of the utility is a linear function of observed data expressed as:
$V_{ij}=X_{ij}^{\prime}\beta$
where X ij , is a vector of attributes in alternative j and β is a vector of coefficients to be estimated. The latent variable, U ij *, is constructed from the observed ranking of possible conditions. That is, respondent i observes:
${U_{ij}} = \;\left\{ {\matrix{ {1\;if\;U_{ij}^* \le {\mu _1},}\hfill \cr {2\;if\;0 \lt U_{ij}^* \le {\mu _2}} \cr {3\;\;if\;U_{ij}^*\; \gt {\mu _2}} \hfill\cr } \;} \right.$
where μ j for j = 1, 2 are threshold parameters.
Consumer preferences for beef sustainability attributes in beef products, treated as an ordered outcome variable with three categories derived from observed statements, are modeled and estimated using a generalized ordered logit model (Williams, Reference Williams2006). In ordered logit models, it is assumed that the relationship between each outcome category remains consistent (parallel line assumption). However, when this assumption does not hold (by one or a few of them), a generalized ordered logit model can be employed to accommodate variations and yield more concise outcomes (Williams, Reference Williams2006). For an ordinal dependent variable with T distinct categories, the generalized ordered logit model, following Williams (Reference Williams2006) can be expressed as:
${{\mathbb P}\left( {{U_i} \gt j} \right) = {{exp\left( {{\gamma _t} + \;X_{i}^,\beta } \right)} \over {1 + \left[ {exp\left( {{\gamma _t} + \;X_{i}^,\beta } \right)} \right]}};t = 1,2, \cdots, T - 1}$
where U i is the probability that an individual respondent i chooses j ordered options, and γ t is the threshold or cut point parameter for each category t. Modifying equations (3) and (4) yields the probability likelihood function of each ranking category of preference following Williams (Reference Williams2006) and Greene (Reference Greene2017) as follows:
${\mathbb P}\left( {U_{ij} = t{\rm{|}}X_i} \right) = \left\{ {\matrix{ {F\,\left( {{\mu _1} - X_{i}^,\beta } \right)}\hfill & {t = 1,}\hfill \cr {F\,\left( {{\mu _t} - X_{i}^,\beta } \right) - F\left( {{\mu _{t - 1}} - X_{i }^,\beta } \right)} & {1 \lt t \le T - 1} \cr {1 - F\left( {{\mu _{T - 1}} - X_{i}^,\beta } \right)}\hfill & {t = T}\hfill \cr } } \right.$
where
F
(.) is the logistic cdf, and it is assumed that
\[{\mu _{T - 1}} > {\mu _{T - 2}}{\rm{ > }}...{\rm{ > }}{\mu _2}{\rm{ > }}{\mu _1}{\rm{ > }}0\]
. The model is estimated by maximum likelihood, and the standard errors are obtained using the negative of the Hessian inverse matrix. The coefficients in equation (4) are interpreted to understand if the dependent variable changes with the explanatory variables. However, their magnitudes do not directly reflect the impact on probability. Hence, marginal effects are estimated to determine the influence of explanatory variables following (Greene, Reference Greene2017). In general, for a continuous covariate
$\rm X_{ij}$
, the marginal effect of an explanatory variable (Greene Reference Greene2017) is expresssed as:
$\frac{\partial P(U_{ij}^{*})}{\partial X_{ij}}=\left[\frac{\partial F\left(u_{t-1}-X_{ij}^{\prime}\beta_{t-1}\right)}{\partial X_{ij}\beta_{t-1}}-\frac{\partial F\left(u_t-X_{ij}^{\prime}\beta_t\right)}{\partial X_{ij}\beta_t}\right]\beta_{jt}$
For binary explanatory variables (all our independent variables are binary), marginal effects are estimated as a discrete difference. The asymptotic standard errors were estimated using the delta method. The marginal effects are reported as average marginal effects, obtained by averaging the discrete changes across all observations.
4. Data
In March 2023, a survey of U.S. consumers was conducted from a nationally representative sample in terms of key demographic factors.Footnote 4 The survey was designed in Qualtrics and administered through an online panel by DynataTM, which is commonly used for online U.S. consumer surveys. There were 3,783 total responses from the survey. Out of those, 416 said they do not eat meat and thus did not finish the survey,Footnote 5 and 366 respondents were determined not to be paying attention through an attention test question in the survey or were incomplete, leaving 3,001 usable responses for analysis. Participant inattention is a well-documented concern in survey-based research (Abbey and Meloy, Reference Abbey and Meloy2017; Perfecto and O’Donnell, Reference Perfecto and O’Donnell2026), prompting widespread use of attention checks to identify and exclude inattentive and careless responses from survey data (Curran, Reference Curran2016; Meade and Craig, Reference Meade and Craig2012; Perfecto and O’Donnell, Reference Perfecto and O’Donnell2026). Curran (Reference Curran2016) argued that using these techniques helps to reduce measurement error in survey results. For instance, Perfecto and O’Donnell (Reference Perfecto and O’Donnell2026) report that 88% of researchers frequently use attention checks, most often relying on “obvious-answer” questions placed mid-survey. Consistent with this practice, this study incorporated a simple obvious-answer attention question in the middle of the survey to identify and exclude inattentive respondents, as incorrect responses indicate minimal or careless engagement with the survey instrument (Perfecto and O’Donnell, Reference Perfecto and O’Donnell2026).
Survey participants needed to reside in the U.S. and be at least 18 years old. Respondents were randomly assigned to a specific survey block, each containing a separate pillar of sustainability. The environmental pillar had 1,009 responses, the social pillar had 996 responses, and the economic pillar had 996 responses utilized in the analysis.
Table 2 presents summary statistics for respondents’ demographic variables. Based on the frequency of beef consumption reported by respondents, we classified respondents as either low (55%) or high beef eaters (45%). Low beef eaters were those who reported consuming two or fewer beef-based meals per week. Respondents were just over half females, with 39% in an average age group of 30–49 years old. About half the respondents were college graduates, and a household income category of $25,000-$74,999 was most common at 39% of respondents (U.S. median household income in 2022 dollars was $75,149 by the U.S. Census Bureau).
Description and summary statistics of demographic variables (N = 3,001)
** Census data includes only those 18 years and above.
++Source for U.S. Political Affiliation: https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents indicated they did not have children under the age of 18 living at home. For political party affiliation, Democrats were more common at 38%, followed by 34% who identified as other than Democrat or Republican. Responses were completed from every state in the U.S., with regional proportions of the sample as 35%, 24%, 24%, and 18% for the South, West, Northeast, and Midwest, respectively.Footnote 6 Whites represented 73%, 13% were Black or African Americans (both similar to those from the 2022 U.S. Census), 5% were Asian or Pacific Islanders, and 9% were other and multiracial responses. We compared certain demographic proportions, such as age, gender, education, race, and income, to benchmarks from the 2022 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (5-year estimates) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022), as shown in the last column of Table 2. Our sample was representative of the U.S. population, as the respondent demographic data are in line with the 2022 U.S. Census demographic dataFootnote 7 .
We asked respondents where they generally buy the meat they consume at home. Unsurprisingly, 85% of respondents buy their meat from grocery stores. Finally, we queried respondents to self-assess their familiarity with the term “sustainable beef or sustainability of meat.” About 43% indicated they were familiar with sustainable beef or meat sustainability, while the rest indicated that they were either neutral or did not know.
For sustainability preferences, responses were rank-ordered responses where each respondent selected the three most important, three moderate (three items not chosen), and three least important items. Our initial objective was to rank preferences by calculating shares of preferences among the nine product attributes of beef for each pillar of sustainability. To do this, we assigned least important selections a value of −1, most important a value of 1, and moderate important a value of 0. In this way, shares of preferences are represented by the simple averages of the responses for each item.
5. Results and discussion
First, distributions and average rankings of responses to the nine aspects of each sustainability pillar are presented and discussed. Then, the influence of demographic traits on preference rankings is summarized. Figures 1 to 3 show the percentage of respondents who selected each aspect among their top three most important, moderately important, and least important issues for each pillar. The rankings are presented in descending order of importance.Footnote 8
Respondents’ preferences for how environmental aspects of beef sustainability should be managed.
Figure 1. Long description
A horizontal bar graph compares respondents' preferences for managing environmental aspects of beef sustainability. The graph has nine horizontal bars, each representing a different strategy. The horizontal axis is labeled Percent of Respondents (N equals 1009), ranging from 0.0 percent to 100.0 percent. The vertical axis lists the strategies: The cattle/beef industry should decide how to manage environmental impacts, Develop voluntary programs for producers to certify environmental assurances, Maintain current cattle environmental production practices, Government pays cattle producers who use more environmental assurances, Require retail beef labeling of environmental impact increasing beef prices, Require producers to certify environmental impacts increasing beef prices, Require beef packers to report environmental impacts increasing beef prices, Impose a tax on cattle producers who do not use more environmental assurances, Impose a tax on retail beef prices based on environmental impact increasing beef prices. Each bar is divided into three segments: Most Important (green), Middle Important (purple), and Least Important (red). The values for each segment are as follows: The cattle/beef industry should decide how to manage environmental impacts: Most Important 42.0 percent, Middle Important 27.7 percent, Least Important 30.3 percent. Develop voluntary programs for producers to certify environmental assurances: Most Important 40.7 percent, Middle Important 29.4 percent, Least Important 29.8 percent. Maintain current cattle environmental production practices: Most Important 39.5 percent, Middle Important 32.2 percent, Least Important 28.2 percent. Government pays cattle producers who use more environmental assurances: Most Important 36.2 percent, Middle Important 32.2 percent, Least Important 31.6 percent. Require retail beef labeling of environmental impact increasing beef prices: Most Important 31.7 percent, Middle Important 34.5 percent, Least Important 33.8 percent. Require producers to certify environmental impacts increasing beef prices: Most Important 30.5 percent, Middle Important 36.9 percent, Least Important 32.6 percent. Require beef packers to report environmental impacts increasing beef prices: Most Important 30.3 percent, Middle Important 37.0 percent, Least Important 32.7 percent. Impose a tax on cattle producers who do not use more environmental assurances: Most Important 28.3 percent, Middle Important 34.0 percent, Least Important 37.7 percent. Impose a tax on retail beef prices based on environmental impact increasing beef prices: Most Important 20.6 percent, Middle Important 36.2 percent, Least Important 43.2 percent.
Respondents’ preferences on how the social aspects of beef sustainability should be managed.
Respondent preferences to sustain cattle/beef producer profitability.
Figure 1 presents the distributions and average rankings of responses to the nine aspects of environmental sustainability of beef. The three most important aspects of environmental beef sustainability to respondents are having the cattle and beef industry decide how to manage environmental impacts, having voluntary producer environmental certifications, and maintaining current practices. At least 40% of respondents indicated these three were highly important to manage the environmental impacts of beef production. Despite about 40% of respondents indicating producers should maintain current cattle environmental production practices, a separate set of Likert-scale questions revealed 37% of respondents believed greenhouse gas emissions were generally too high, and 31% indicated production of beef cattle was a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, while there is sizeable concern for these issues, respondents prefer the industry to address the concerns relative to options regulating environmental practices that were presented to them.
On the other hand, 38% or more respondents ranked imposing taxes on either retail beef prices or cattle producers as least important preference to manage the environmental impacts of beef production. Consumers tend to oppose taxation that would increase beef prices to manage environmental aspects of beef sustainability. This is consistent with Schroeder et al. (Reference Schroeder, Osman, Lancaster and White2023) who found that consumers were unlikely to pay more for low-carbon beef, an environmental sustainability option. Similar results were revealed by Yang et al. (Reference Yang, Fang, Thompson and Nayga2024), in their study of public acceptance of earmarked beef carbon taxes, in which they found negative WTP for the carbon tax, indicating limited consumer support for such policy instruments.
Figure 2 presents the social aspects of beef sustainability rankings of respondent importance. Respondents placed highest importance on processors and retailers assuring good animal welfare practices with more than 40% ranking each of these as most important. Respondents ranked restricting hormone use in beef production which would increase beef prices as the third most important. Even though consumers want low prices, they prefer fewer hormones used in beef production, even with higher prices. These results are consistent with previous research (Broom, Reference Broom2021; Schroeder et al., Reference Schroeder, Osman, Lancaster and White2023).
Least important of the social statements were subsidizing grass feeding of cattle which would increase greenhouse gas emissions, subsidizing producers who have animal welfare assurances, and developing voluntary producer programs to certify sustainability. Overall, this suggests consumers do not favor government subsidizing producers to incentivize either animal welfare or grass-feeding cattle.
Figure 3 presents preference rankings for economic sustainability of beef production. Respondents most favored funding research to develop more efficient beef production technology and providing tax incentives to restaurants to serve locally produced beef. More than 40% of respondents indicated these two were most important, while less than 30% considered them least important. Funding production research leading to reduced beef prices was somewhat surprising, as the leading preference in this pillar among our set of options. Concerns with beef cattle production technology adoption, such as ractopamine hydrochloride, antibiotics, and growth hormones, might cause consumer skepticism about technology adoption in beef production (Aboagye et al., Reference Aboagye, Cordeiro, McAllister and Ominski2021; Centner et al., Reference Centner, Alvey and Stelzleni2014; Drouillard, Reference Drouillard2018). We did not specify the nature of new technology in our statement in the survey instrument, so respondents interpreted technological advancements from their individual perceptions. As was shown in Figure 2, respondents favored restricting hormone use in beef production, which one might consider contradicting their favoring funding new technology development. Regardless, this high ranking of investing in new production technology deserves more research to uncover specific types of technology preferences consumers revealed here. Consumers support restaurants sourcing beef products locally, consistent with Denver et al. (Reference Denver, Jensen, Olsen and Christensen2019), who found that most respondents in Denmark view raising cattle close to them as a priority in purchasing decisions. Ridley et al. (Reference Ridley, Shook and Devadoss2015) indicated that when beef is produced within an 85-mile radius, consumers view it as locally grown, while Telligman et al. (Reference Telligman, Worosz and Bratcher2017) reveal that local beef was associated with having access to information about the producer, farm, and the production methods and was viewed as a quality cue strongly linked to a particular geographic area.
On the other end of the economic sustainability ranking spectrum respondents did not favor subsidizing building new beef packing plants, risk insurance products for producers, or paying producers during droughts. Less than 30% of respondents indicated any of these three were among the most important and more than 35% indicated they were least important of economic sustainability aspects of beef production. This is particularly interesting since all three of these are currently occurring under various federal support programs in the U.S. We did not reveal to respondents these are active programs, and we also did not ask them if they were aware of that. Regardless, it indicates other initiatives in the set have stronger consumer preferences.
A final aspect of sustainability preference rankings shown in Figures 1–3 is that several strategies have roughly flat preference ranking distributions across importance levels. This accentuates heterogeneity among preferences across consumers but also could be indicative of consumers having relatively small differences in preferences across some alternatives presented. Our method does not allow us to determine the magnitude of preference, only the ranking by respondents. That said, consumers tend not to favor taxes, subsidies, or price increases to ensure sustainable beef production practices. Similar conclusions have been found by others (Lister et al., Reference Lister, Tonsor, Brix, Schroeder and Yang2017; Luke and Tonsor, Reference Luke and Tonsor2025b; Schroeder et al., Reference Schroeder, Osman, Lancaster and White2023). For instance, Luke and Tonsor (Reference Luke and Tonsor2025b) reveal that U.S. consumers are less likely to vote in favor of mandates aimed at reducing beef production emissions if those mandates are expected to increase beef prices, reflecting price sensitivity to policy preferences. Bundled sustainability claims about beef products may help attract a market premium over a single component, since many single claims tend not to be overwhelmingly preferred.
Marginal effects
Given varied preferences for the sustainability components presented to respondents, of interest is whether preference ranks are associated with demographic variation. Thus, we assessed how consumer demographic traits relate to variation in preferences for alternative options. This information can be helpful for market segmentation for beef products as well as for policy assessments and trade-offs. Given the large number of items in each pillar, we focus our discussion on selected statistically significant variables associated with each statement in each pillar. The marginal effects indicate the change in probability of a respondent in that demographic category ranking the statement at each particular level relative to the default demographic. A positive coefficient for a demographic attribute X means that increases in X (or in the case of binary variables, X changing from 0 to 1) make it more likely that the respondent revealed that preference ranking for the statement. For example, if male has a positive 0.20 coefficient, it means that a male has a 20 percentage point greater likelihood of ranking an aspect of beef sustainability in the respective importance level than a female. The reverse is true for a negative coefficient. Marginal effects are interpreted relative to each base demographic category listed in Table 2.
Marginal effects of demographic factors on preference rankings are reported in Tables A2–A4 in the Appendix. Overall, few demographic factors are statistically significantly associated with preference rankings across the nine alternative statements for any of the three pillars. Furthermore, for several strategies, no demographic attributes have estimated marginal effects statistically significantly different from zero at the 90% confidence level. This indicates that in general, though consumer preference rankings are variable, ranking variation tends not to be strongly associated with respondent demographic attributes, with noted exceptions. This is not an uncommon finding; Caputo and Lusk (Reference Caputo and Lusk2020) also found that limited demographic attributes were associated with food policy preferences. Apparently, factors other than demographics influence such rankings. We highlight what we consider most noteworthy factors with full results reported in the Appendix for those interested in specific details.
5.1. Environmental aspects of beef sustainability preferences and demographic traits
Table A2 in the Appendix presents estimated marginal effects from the generalized ordered logit models for environmental preference rankings. Respondent age was especially associated with rankings of two statements. Older respondents were 8 to 10 percentage points more likely rank low requiring producers to certify environmental impact thus increasing beef price. Older respondents also progressively ranked as a middle preference adding a tax to retail beef prices based on environmental impact, increasing beef price, and they were less likely to rank this statement as a low preference. Respondents with higher income were 10 to 15 percentage points more likely to rank highly to require retail beef labeling of environmental impact, resulting in higher beef prices. In contrast they were were 10 to 16 percentage points less likely to rank this as a low preference. Respondent gender, presence of children, region, and where the respondent purchases beef from, with a few exceptions, generally had limited association with environmental sustainability statement rankings.
5.2. Social aspects of beef sustainability preferences and demographic traits
Table A3 in the Appendix presents marginal effects for the social pillar of beef sustainability. Respondent age was strongly related to restricting hormones in beef production despite that increasing prices with 8 to 15 percentage points more likely to rank this as a high priority. Higher income consumers were about 12 percentage points more likely to rank highly retailers being responsible to assure beef sold was produced using good animal welfare practices. One of the statements with the most demographic-related divergence was that of restricting hormone use in beef production causing increased beef prices. This statement was ranked in about the middle of all the social statements overall. However, high beef eaters were 8 percentage points more likely to rank this high; Republicans and other affiliates 6 to 7 percentage points less likely to rank this low; college graduates were more likely to rank this low; Midwesterners less likely to rank this high; and males and higher income respondents more likely to place this in the middle.
5.3. Economic aspects of beef sustainability preference and demographic traits
Marginal effects of how consumer demographic traits influence their preferences for economic aspects of sustainability are summarized in Table A4 in the Appendix. The economic statements had lower variation overall across rankings than the other two pillars, which might not be surprising given that economic dimensions focused mostly on factors affecting producers, which typical respondents may have less familiarity with than environmental or social constructs. Consistent with the relatively less separation among rankings, fewer patterns arose relative to marginal changes in responses associated with age or income level for this pillar, relative to the other two. Though middle income respondents were more likely to rank subsiding risk insurance for cattle operations as lowest priority whereas White and other races were more likely to place this in the middle, this statement overall was the second lowest ranked of the economic aspects.
6. Policy implications and conclusion
According to the U.S. EPA (2024), livestock production is an important source of climate-damaging gas (methane) emissions. Partially motivated by this and other production practices of beef production, consumers, policymakers, and producers are concerned with sustainability aspects of the cattle and beef industry. In managing cattle production methods to satisfy downstream consumer demand and regulatory requirements related to sustainable beef production, it is important to understand how consumer preferences for specific sustainability policies align with alternative strategies. In this study, we examined consumer preferences for aspects of beef sustainability across the three major pillars.
Overall, the highest ranked consumer preferences for environmental sustainability issues were the cattle/beef industry should decide how to manage environmental impacts; develop voluntarily programs for producers to certify environmental assurances; and maintain current cattle environmental production practices. The lowest ranked were impose a tax on retail beef prices based on environmental impact increasing beef prices; impose a tax on cattle producers who do not use more environmental assurances, and require beef packers to report environmental impacts increasing beef prices.
For social issues, the highest ranked were beef processors should assure beef sold was produced using good animal welfare; retailers should assure beef sold was produced using good animal welfare; and further restrict using hormones in beef production increasing beef prices. Lowest ranked were government subsidizes cattle-fed grass diets increasing greenhouse gas emissions; government subsidizes producers to use more animal welfare assurances; and develop voluntary programs for producers to certify sustainability.
Economic aspects ranked highest were to fund more research to develop production technology which will reduce beef prices; restrict beef imports during times of low cattle prices which will increase beef prices; and provide tax incentives to restaurants serving locally produced beef. Least preferred were government subsidizes building new beef packing/processing plants; government subsidizes risk insurance for family-owned cattle operations; and government pays producers during droughts which will reduce beef prices.
Across all pillars, respondents preferred strategies that either lowered or at least did not increase beef prices, except for a price increase for a reduction in hormones used in beef production. This reaffirms that though consumers may desire sustainable beef production practices, many do not favor adoption of practices that result in an increase in the cost of production, translating to an increase in price. However, every sustainability aspect was ranked highly by at least some respondents.
Consumers demonstrated substantial heterogeneity in sustainability preferences. The implication is that producers can market various sustainability traits of beef products to specific consumer groups. However, the minimal association between respondent demographics and preference rankings makes it difficult to identify which beef sustainability attributes are preferred by which consumers. A variety of approaches to cattle production and marketing regarding sustainability traits are advised to cater to a wide range of demand preferences. Regarding policy, addressing beef sustainability issues through taxation or subsidies is unlikely to yield the desired results, as consumers do not prefer such policies except in cases of tax incentives for local beef or government payments to producers to assure environmental sustainability.
Results of this study should be conditioned like any consumer survey in that preference rankings were stated by the respondent and were not binding. Our results generally supported earlier research findings and offered new insights into consumer preferences for beef sustainability aspects. The limitations of the current findings indicate the need for additional investigation, as with any study. A natural progression would be to estimate the additional cost producers would bear for implementing any of these aspects of sustainability and the market premiums consumers are willing to offer. Knowing the cost and the market premiums of supplying associated product traits is essential for adoption. Prospective research endeavors may also consider investigating non-hypothetical trials of similar product attributes in the market and cross-referencing our findings with secondary data sources, including scanner data.
Data availability statement
The codes and data that support the findings will be available upon the acceptance of this paper by the editor(s).
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge partial funding support for this study from the Kansas Beef Council. The findings presented are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Kansas Beef Council.
Authors contribution
Conceptualization, E.Y.O., T.C.S., P.A.L., and B.J.W.; Methodology, E.Y.O., T.C.S., P.A.L., and B.J.W.; Formal Analysis, E.Y.O., and T.C.S.; Data Curation, E.Y.O., T.C.S., P.A.L., and B.J.W.; Writing – Original Draft, E.Y.O., and T.C.S.; Writing – Review and Editing, E.Y.O., T.C.S., P.A.L., and B.J.W.; Supervision, E.Y.O., T.C.S., P.A.L., and B.J.W.; Funding Acquisition, E.Y.O., T.C.S., P.A.L., and B.J.W.
Financial support
This work was supported partially by the Kansas Beef Council (Grant Number 008598 – BH1215 KBC).
Competing interests
The authors declare none.
Appendix
Beef sustainability description used in Tables A2 to A4
Marginal effects on the environmental aspects of beef sustainability
Notes: Full names of attributes can be found in Table A1. Standard errors in parentheses. ***, **, and * denote statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% significance level, respectively.
Marginal effects on the social aspects of beef sustainability
Table A3. Long description
A horizontal bar graph compares respondents' preferences for managing environmental aspects of beef sustainability. The graph has nine horizontal bars, each representing a different strategy. The horizontal axis is labeled Percent of Respondents (N equals 1009), ranging from 0.0 percent to 100.0 percent. The vertical axis lists the strategies: The cattle/beef industry should decide how to manage environmental impacts, Develop voluntary programs for producers to certify environmental assurances, Maintain current cattle environmental production practices, Government pays cattle producers who use more environmental assurances, Require retail beef labeling of environmental impact increasing beef prices, Require producers to certify environmental impacts increasing beef prices, Require beef packers to report environmental impacts increasing beef prices, Impose a tax on cattle producers who do not use more environmental assurances, Impose a tax on retail beef prices based on environmental impact increasing beef prices. Each bar is divided into three segments: Most Important (green), Middle Important (purple), and Least Important (red). The values for each segment are as follows: The cattle/beef industry should decide how to manage environmental impacts: Most Important 42.0 percent, Middle Important 27.7 percent, Least Important 30.3 percent. Develop voluntary programs for producers to certify environmental assurances: Most Important 40.7 percent, Middle Important 29.4 percent, Least Important 29.8 percent. Maintain current cattle environmental production practices: Most Important 39.5 percent, Middle Important 32.2 percent, Least Important 28.2 percent. Government pays cattle producers who use more environmental assurances: Most Important 36.2 percent, Middle Important 32.2 percent, Least Important 31.6 percent. Require retail beef labeling of environmental impact increasing beef prices: Most Important 31.7 percent, Middle Important 34.5 percent, Least Important 33.8 percent. Require producers to certify environmental impacts increasing beef prices: Most Important 30.5 percent, Middle Important 36.9 percent, Least Important 32.6 percent. Require beef packers to report environmental impacts increasing beef prices: Most Important 30.3 percent, Middle Important 37.0 percent, Least Important 32.7 percent. Impose a tax on cattle producers who do not use more environmental assurances: Most Important 28.3 percent, Middle Important 34.0 percent, Least Important 37.7 percent. Impose a tax on retail beef prices based on environmental impact increasing beef prices: Most Important 20.6 percent, Middle Important 36.2 percent, Least Important 43.2 percent.
Notes: Full names of attributes can be found in Table A1. Standard errors in parentheses. ***, **, and * denote statistical significance at the 1, 5%, and 10% significance level, respectively.
Marginal effects on the economic aspects of beef sustainability
Table A4. Long description
A horizontal bar graph compares respondents' preferences for managing environmental aspects of beef sustainability. The graph features nine horizontal bars, each representing a different strategy. The horizontal axis is labeled Percent of Respondents (N equals 876), ranging from 0.0 percent to 100.0 percent. The vertical axis lists the strategies: The cattle/beef industry should decide how to manage environmental impacts, Develop voluntary programs for producers to certify environmental assurances, Maintain current cattle environmental production practices, Government pays cattle producers who use more environmental assurances, Require retail beef labeling of environmental impact increasing beef prices, Require beef packers to report environmental impacts increasing beef prices, Require producers to certify environmental impacts increasing beef prices, Impose a tax on cattle producers who do not use more environmental assurances, Impose a tax on retail beef prices based on environmental impact increasing beef prices. Each bar is divided into three segments: green for Most Important, blue for Middle Important, and red for Least Important. The values for each segment are as follows: The cattle/beef industry should decide how to manage environmental impacts: Most Important 43.3 percent, Middle Important 27.9 percent, Least Important 28.9 percent. Develop voluntary programs for producers to certify environmental assurances: Most Important 42.0 percent, Middle Important 29.1 percent, Least Important 28.9 percent. Maintain current cattle environmental production practices: Most Important 41.0 percent, Middle Important 32.0 percent, Least Important 27.1 percent. Government pays cattle producers who use more environmental assurances: Most Important 36.0 percent, Middle Important 32.2 percent, Least Important 31.8 percent. Require retail beef labeling of environmental impact increasing beef prices: Most Important 31.3 percent, Middle Important 34.4 percent, Least Important 34.4 percent. Require beef packers to report environmental impacts increasing beef prices: Most Important 29.9 percent, Middle Important 36.8 percent, Least Important 33.3 percent. Require producers to certify environmental impacts increasing beef prices: Most Important 29.8 percent, Middle Important 37.4 percent, Least Important 32.8 percent. Impose a tax on cattle producers who do not use more environmental assurances: Most Important 27.5 percent, Middle Important 33.7 percent, Least Important 38.8 percent. Impose a tax on retail beef prices based on environmental impact increasing beef prices: Most Important 19.3 percent, Middle Important 36.6 percent, Least Important 44.1 percent.
Notes: Full names of attributes can be found in Table A1. Standard errors in parentheses. ***, **, and * denote statistical significance at the 1, 5%, and 10% significance level, respectively.
Information criteria for environmental aspects of sustainability models
Information criteria for social aspects of sustainability models
Information criteria for economic aspects of sustainability models
Preference rankings
Figures A1–A3 present the distributions and average rankings of the nine aspects within each environmental, social, and economic sustainability of beef, respectively, for respondents who reported consuming beef at least once per week. Because beef consumption frequency may influence how individuals prioritize sustainability strategies, we restricted the analysis to regular beef consumers and excluded respondents who consume beef less than once per week to assess the sensitivity of respondents’ rankings to beef consumption behavior. We found that the average rankings among regular beef consumers were nearly identical to those of the full sample. This suggests that excluding infrequent beef consumers (consuming beef less than once per week) does not materially alter the results, supporting the robustness of the primary analysis.
Respondents’ preferences for how environmental aspects of beef sustainability should be managed.
Figure A1. Long description
A horizontal bar graph compares respondents' preferences for managing environmental aspects of beef sustainability. The graph features nine horizontal bars, each representing a different strategy. The horizontal axis is labeled Percent of Respondents (N equals 876), ranging from 0.0 percent to 100.0 percent. The vertical axis lists the strategies: The cattle/beef industry should decide how to manage environmental impacts, Develop voluntary programs for producers to certify environmental assurances, Maintain current cattle environmental production practices, Government pays cattle producers who use more environmental assurances, Require retail beef labeling of environmental impact increasing beef prices, Require beef packers to report environmental impacts increasing beef prices, Require producers to certify environmental impacts increasing beef prices, Impose a tax on cattle producers who do not use more environmental assurances, Impose a tax on retail beef prices based on environmental impact increasing beef prices. Each bar is divided into three segments: green for Most Important, blue for Middle Important, and red for Least Important. The values for each segment are as follows: The cattle/beef industry should decide how to manage environmental impacts: Most Important 43.3 percent, Middle Important 27.9 percent, Least Important 28.9 percent. Develop voluntary programs for producers to certify environmental assurances: Most Important 42.0 percent, Middle Important 29.1 percent, Least Important 28.9 percent. Maintain current cattle environmental production practices: Most Important 41.0 percent, Middle Important 32.0 percent, Least Important 27.1 percent. Government pays cattle producers who use more environmental assurances: Most Important 36.0 percent, Middle Important 32.2 percent, Least Important 31.8 percent. Require retail beef labeling of environmental impact increasing beef prices: Most Important 31.3 percent, Middle Important 34.4 percent, Least Important 34.4 percent. Require beef packers to report environmental impacts increasing beef prices: Most Important 29.9 percent, Middle Important 36.8 percent, Least Important 33.3 percent. Require producers to certify environmental impacts increasing beef prices: Most Important 29.8 percent, Middle Important 37.4 percent, Least Important 32.8 percent. Impose a tax on cattle producers who do not use more environmental assurances: Most Important 27.5 percent, Middle Important 33.7 percent, Least Important 38.8 percent. Impose a tax on retail beef prices based on environmental impact increasing beef prices: Most Important 19.3 percent, Middle Important 36.6 percent, Least Important 44.1 percent.
Respondents’ preferences on how the social aspects of beef sustainability should be managed.
Respondent preferences to sustain cattle/beef producer profitability.
Figure A3. Long description
A horizontal bar graph compares respondent preferences for various strategies to sustain cattle/beef producer profitability. The graph features nine horizontal bars, each representing a different strategy. The horizontal axis is labeled Percent of Respondents (N equals 877), ranging from 0.0 percent to 100.0 percent. The vertical axis lists the strategies. Each bar is divided into three segments: green for Most Important, blue for Middle Important, and red for Least Important. The strategies and their corresponding percentages are as follows: Fund more research to develop production technology which will reduce beef prices (44.0 percent Most Important, 28.5 percent Middle Important, 27.5 percent Least Important), Provide tax incentives to restaurants serving locally produced beef (42.0 percent Most Important, 28.8 percent Middle Important, 29.2 percent Least Important), Restrict beef imports during times of low cattle prices which will increase beef prices (36.3 percent Most Important, 30.6 percent Middle Important, 33.2 percent Least Important), Restrict cattle grazing land from being converted to non-ag uses to reduce land costs (34.9 percent Most Important, 33.8 percent Middle Important, 31.4 percent Least Important), Government pays producers when cattle prices are low which will reduce beef prices (31.2 percent Most Important, 34.2 percent Middle Important, 34.5 percent Least Important), Cattle producers should be subject to the same risks as other businesses (31.1 percent Most Important, 35.5 percent Middle Important, 33.4 percent Least Important), Government pays producers during droughts which will reduce beef prices (29.9 percent Most Important, 34.8 percent Middle Important, 35.3 percent Least Important), Government subsidizes risk insurance for family-owned cattle operations (26.3 percent Most Important, 36.8 percent Middle Important, 36.8 percent Least Important), Government subsidizes building new beef packing/processing plants (24.3 percent Most Important, 37.1 percent Middle Important, 38.7 percent Least Important).
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