Germany is eating less and less meat.
Per capita consumption will drop significantly in 2020.
Pork is especially out.
Berlin - Germans have never eaten less meat than last year: 57.3 kilograms per capita and thus 750 grams less than in 2019. This is the lowest value since the start of the calculation in 1989 and is based on the preliminary information from the meat supply balance. which the Federal Information Center for Agriculture (BZL) presented on Monday.
Pork seems to be particularly out: with a minus of 940 grams per capita, pork is at the bottom of the ranking.
Beef and veal were also 40 grams less than in 2019. Poultry, on the other hand, is on the rise - consumption increased by a full 180 grams in 2020.
Meat Consumption 2020: A lack of appetite for meat hits the industry promptly
Overall, however, meat consumption is declining.
The fact that Germany had less desire for steak, mince and co in the first year of the corona was immediately noticeable in meat production.
The industry also recorded a decline: in 2020 it produced meat with a total slaughter weight of “only” 8.5 million tons.
That is around 1.6 percent less than in the previous year.
In line with the consumption trend, pork production fell by 2.4 percent, for beef and veal it was 2.7 percent less and for poultry 1.7 percent more.
One reason for the lack of desire for meat products could be various product recalls such as at the beginning of 2020 and the Tönnies scandal that flared up again and again from the middle of the year.
Meat consumption in 2020: exports and imports of animals collapse
The import and export of meat also fell noticeably in the first year of the pandemic.
Germany imported live animals with a slaughter weight of just under 653,000 tons - 14.8 percent less than in 2019. There was also an 11 percent decline in exports - just under 453,000 tons.
Overall, imports and exports of meat products fell within the year by 7.8 and 6.5 percent.