Consumer Preferences for the Attributes of Equine Oil Supplements

The equine nutrition market is expected to grow with higher household disposable income. However, there is hardly any research on consumer attitudes toward equine oil, a key supplement to promote healthy weight gain for horses. The objective of this study was to understand consumers’ preferences regarding the nutrition, product, and package attributes of equine oil supplements when making purchase decisions. Among 110 equine owners or renters who responded to the anonymous online survey, approximately 64.55% had used fat supplements for their horses, and 23.64% had tried rice bran oil in particular. When rating the importance of nutritional attributes on a scale of one to five, consumers identified the following three factors as the most important: horses find the oil highly palatable and do not refuse to consume it (mean = 4.10), promoting weight gain for hard keepers (mean = 4.03), and good source for fat supplementation (mean = 3.90). Consumers considered being grown and made in the USA (mean = 3.44), top dress on current ration (mean = 3.11), and family or farmer owned (mean = 2.99) as the most critical product attributes. In terms of packaging, unit price per ounce (mean = 3.85) and ease of use (mean = 3.56) were the most important, and 90.91% of participants would prefer that an equine oil supplement be packaged in bulk with a pump dispenser. The findings from this study will shed light on the packaging and labeling practices of equine oil supplements and provide guidance on how to promote their nutritional benefits.