While consumer meat-eating habits require the slaughter of pigs on an industrial scale, data suggests that consumers are becoming more discerning about the quality of pork they are buying by choosing free-range options.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 4 minutes 55 seconds 4 m 55 s Butchering free-range pork with chef Peter Ford ( ABC Ballarat: Dominic Cansdale ) Download 2.3 MB

Not only are meat-eaters wanting to know that the pork they purchase has been humanely killed, but they are also wanting to know the pork's provenance to feel assured of the welfare of the pig and that it had some quality of life.

For Ballarat chef, Peter Ford, the general public's growing appetite for high-quality, free-range meat has been noticeable over the course of his 39 years in the restaurant industry.

More recently however, Mr Ford and a group of friends have begun raising and slaughtering their own meat — an experience that he said changes perceptions of what constitutes high-quality meat.

Nothing goes to waste

Mr Ford and his friends named their saddleback sow Ethel, and have been feeding her a diet of fruit, vegetables and grains.

Ethel has been living for the past six months in a pen that is about half the size of a tennis court.

Chef Peter Ford raises and helps to slaughter his own pigs, using almost every part of the animal for personal consumption. ( ABC Ballarat: Dominic Cansdale )

Almost everything, from the premium cuts to the pig's blood, will eventually be used in Peter Ford's home cooking.

"Personal consumption is all that we're allowed to do," Mr Ford said.

"We'll share in the salamis, pig roasts, prosciuttos and things like that, so it strictly cannot go through a public dining room or be sold."

Mr Ford said he has helped to raise and slaughter around a dozen pigs and found the process of preparing the animals for human consumption — cleaning, shaving and butchering — something that people can learn from.

"They've got to go back to the tradesman, go back to a butcher," he said.

"Don't go to the supermarket and look at something wrapped in plastic that's been processed and no one knows anything about it's provenance.

"A butcher buys them from the market so he knows the farmers that he's buying from or where they come from at least."

What makes good meat?

Ballarat farmer, Shaun Moloney, breeds his own livestock — including Ethel — and has been slaughtering his own lambs and pigs for years.

"Of all the meats, I reckon pork is the one you can taste the biggest difference on," Mr Maloney said.

"You buy lamb from the supermarket, beef from the supermarket; I think it tastes similar to what you have if you grow your own, but I reckon with a pig, you can really taste the difference of home-grown.

"The variety of foods — something from the veggie garden, grains … and they've got a big free-range pen there so that pig has had a good life."

Mr Ford said he now eats less meat and the meat he butchers himself is served in smaller quantities.

"When you serve these things up you don't want to eat it all at once.

"Before you put a 250 gram steak on your plate and you wouldn't think twice about it, and now one cutlet you can enjoy between a couple of people and eat it for taste rather than bulk," he said.

Attitudes are changing

PhD student, Emily Buddle, has been studying consumer attitudes towards meat for the Food Values Research Group at the University of Adelaide since 2015.

Her research has involved interviewing 66 consumers over two years, which she said shows that "animal welfare is important to consumers".

"People are genuinely becoming more interested in how their food is produced and coming back to the main question they have; it comes down to quality of life and quality of death.

"But when they behave as consumers taste and price are ultimate drivers for the purchase of the meat products," Ms Buddle said.

Ms Buddle said consumers are motivated to know more about where their meat comes from, along with the animal's diet, and that some prefer to buy food from the farmgate and have a conversation with the producer.

Others go to butchers "not only because it's perceived to be of better quality, but butchers also know more about the backstory of animal".

"While there's some very, very ethically-motivated consumers who will go and buy products with ethical claims like free-range or grass-fed — because they perceive those products as being more ethical and more animal welfare-friendly — we do know that price and taste are the main drivers," Ms Buddle said.

"There's probably a lot of correlation.

"People perceive that more ethical products do taste better."

Can you taste the difference?

Australia Pork Limited's Annual Report of 2017 found that the "percentage of sows in outdoor production has increased to 12.5 per cent" of all commercial operators certified under the Quality Pork Industry Assurance Program.

That is up slightly from an 11 per cent increase in 2016.

The program covers more than 90 per cent of sows under commercial production and is designed to verify industry compliance with food safety, animal welfare and other regulatory standards.

Spokesman for Australian Pork Limited, Peter Haydon, said demand for free-range pork has increased, along with standard pork.

"The average consumption of pork that you would cook and eat at home has gone from about 8.5 kilograms to about 11.5kg so it's almost added 50 per cent in the last six or seven years," Mr Haydon said.

"There has been an increase in the amount of pork being produced either outdoor bred or free-range in the last three or four years.

"There is a group of consumers who are very interested the provenance story of where their food comes from. They tend to be people that are very passionate about food."

Under industry standards, free-range means the pigs have access to the outdoors throughout their entire life while outdoor bred means the mother sow is free-range, but the piglets are kept indoors, preferably in open-sided sheds.

But Mr Haydon said that while it is difficult to conclude definitively that free-range pork tastes better than standard pork, "perception is reality" when it comes to spending habits.