The downward trend in meat production continues

The Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden (Destatis) reports further declining production quantities for both cattle and pigs. However, if you look at meat production worldwide, you can definitely see differences. In the years 2017-2020, beef production grew by almost 5% to over 69 million t. The sheep meat grew only slightly by approx. 3% to 16 million t. The strongest growth was registered in poultry meat with almost 12% between 2017 and 2020.

In turn, pork production fell by 27% over the same period. From 117 million t to 88 million t. However, this decrease is primarily due to the fact that the production volume in China fell by more than 1% due to the African swine fever. This is huge, of course, because by 50 China produced almost as much pork as the rest of the world combined.

Since ASF is still only found in wild boars in Germany (with one exception), the reason for the decline in this country is on the one hand due to the closings of the Tönnies slaughterhouses in summer 2020 and the changed consumption habits due to the negative image of pig farming 1 and 2 and, above all, the significantly smaller range of animals from abroad. However, the decline of 1,2% was quite moderate. It was not until June 2021 that more pork was produced again than in the previous year.

The clear trend away from pork continues, however. Since 2014, the per capita consumption of pork in Germany has fallen from 38,65 kg in 2014 to 32,84 kg in 2020. That is a decrease of 15% in 7 years.

There are quite different tendencies among cattle. There was an increase of 1,5% for cows, for calves and young cattle also by 0,8% and for bulls there was a significant decrease, so that the bottom line was that 0,5% fewer cattle were marketed than in the same period in 2020 .

Here, too, the current development coincides with the long-term view of per capita consumption. The per capita consumption of beef was roughly 10 kg in Germany for many years. Beef has only seen a slight decline since 2017. From 9,97 kg per capita in 2017 to 9,81 kg in 2020.

The fact that the per capita consumption of meat among German citizens is not falling significantly is due to the consumption of poultry meat. While it has been stable at around 11,4 kg for many years, consumption has increased continuously since 2015 to 13,26 kg. This means that the poultry meat has experienced roughly the same percentage increase as the loss in the case of pork.

Source: Federal Statistical Office, Thünen Institute, German Hunting Association, BLE (414)