Consumer attitudes toward bacteriophage applications to pet food

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dc.creatorEagan, Bailey H.
dc.creatorWang, Siyuan
dc.creatorHall, Nathaniel J. (TTU)
dc.creatorProtopopova, Alexandra
dc.date.accessioned2023-01-18T20:57:20Z
dc.date.available2023-01-18T20:57:20Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.description© 2022 Eagan, Wang, Hall and Protopopova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.en_US
dc.description.abstractThis study used a two-part questionnaire to investigate consumer knowledge and attitudes toward bacteriophage applications in pet food, pet food safety, and environmental sustainability. Part 1 included questions about pet food safety, sustainability, and knowledge and attitudes toward bacteriophages. Next, participants reviewed educational materials about each, and Part 2 assessed if this increased knowledge of, or changed attitudes toward, bacteriophage application. Participants (n = 80), were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MT) (n = 45) and Social Media (SM) (n = 35). Mean responses in Part 1 and Part 2 were compared by paired t-tests, and mean responses between MT and SM were compared by t-tests. Participants reported pet food safety was important to them (combined proportion strongly agree or agree, mean ± SD) (75/80, 94%, MT 4.66 ± 0.60, SM 4.71 ± 0.95) and were most concerned with raw pet food safety (51/80, 64%, MT 3.88 ± 0.80, SM 3.17 ± 1.40). Participants rated environmental sustainability as important (61/80, 76%, MT 3.86 ± 0.94, SM 3.97 ± 0.66); however, it was not a strong driver of pet food purchasing (26/80, 33%, MT 3.31 ± 1.25, SM 2.82 ± 0.82). Overall, data showed an increase in knowledge of bacteriophages following a review of educational material. However, in the SM group, no statistically significant difference was observed in the comfort eating food with bacteriophage additives (SM Part 1 3.37 ± 1.05, SM Part 2 3.48 ± 1.12, p = 0.279), whereas the MT group did show an increase (MT Part 1 3.57 ± 1.01, MT Part 2 4.08 ± 0.92, p < 0.001). In the SM group, no statistically significant difference was observed in comfort feeding their pet food with bacteriophage additives (SM Part 1 3.40 ± 1.03, SM Part 2 3.45 ± 1.14, p = 0.571), whereas the MT group did show an increase (MT Part 1 3.57 ± 0.98, MT Part 2 4.31 ± 0.84, p < 0.001). The strongest objections related to safety concerns (20/53, 38%, MT 2.83 ± 0.96, SM 3.27 ± 0.84). These results demonstrate that despite increasing knowledge, there is still hesitancy among some consumers toward bacteriophage applications in pet food.en_US
dc.identifier.citationEagan BH, Wang S, Hall N and Protopopova A (2022) Consumer attitudes toward bacteriophage applications to pet food. Front. Vet. Sci. 9:921508. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.921508en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.921508
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2346/90469
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.subjectBacteriophageen_US
dc.subjectSustainabilityen_US
dc.subjectPet Fooden_US
dc.subjectFood Safetyen_US
dc.subjectEnvironmenten_US
dc.titleConsumer attitudes toward bacteriophage applications to pet fooden_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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