Status: 02/08/2023 12:43 p.m
German slaughterhouses produced significantly less meat in 2022 than in the previous year. The decline in pork and beef is particularly strong.
Meat production in Germany fell last year more than it had in years. The commercial slaughterhouses produced 7 million tons of meat, as the Federal Statistical Office announced today in Wiesbaden. That was a good eight percent less than in 2021.
After a record 8.3 million tons in 2016, meat production has fallen every year, “but never as much as in 2022,” according to the statisticians. A total of 51.2 million pigs, cattle, sheep, goats and horses and 701.4 million chickens, turkeys and ducks were slaughtered for human consumption in slaughterhouses nationwide.
Smaller inventories, higher costs
The amount of pork fell at an above-average rate: 47 million pigs were slaughtered, almost ten percent fewer than in the previous year. Meat production fell accordingly.
In the medium term, the minus is even clearer: compared to 2016, almost a fifth less pork was produced. One reason is the declining pig stocks in Germany, according to the statistics office. Since 2020 alone, the stock has fallen by almost a fifth (18.2 percent).
Many farms are struggling with the increased cost of energy, fertilizer and feed. Consumer prices for meat and meat products also rose sharply last year – by almost 15 percent compared to the previous year.
Eight million vegetarians
The number of cattle slaughtered also fell sharply by 7.8 percent to almost 3 million animals. The decline in poultry meat was less clear: Here the minus was 2.9 percent to a good 1.5 million tons.
Meat consumption in Germany is also tending to decrease. In 2021, Germans consumed an average of around 55 kilograms of meat per capita. Almost eight million people in Germany are now vegetarians – almost ten percent of the population. According to the Society for Consumer Research (GfK) in Nuremberg, the number of vegetarians has increased more than fifteenfold since 1983.