According to consumer advocates, meat products are often marketed as “regional,” but often they are not. In addition to the origin, there are also often problems with feed and animal welfare.
According to consumer advocates, meat and sausage suppliers like to market products as more regional than they really are. Despite location information such as “from the region” or “from Germany”, the origin is in some cases unclear, as the Hamburg consumer advice center announced today. She checked 13 meat and sausage products that were declared regional. The result is “rather sobering”.
Region broadly defined by manufacturers
“Consumers rely on regional products in the hope of supporting local agriculture, receiving fresh goods with short transport routes and acting more sustainably,” it said. But this hope is often not fulfilled.
For example, the “Holstein sausage” is made with pork from the EU. The chicken meat described as regional could also come from either Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony or Schleswig-Holstein – an area of almost 90,000 square kilometers.
Ingredients in animal feed often come from abroad
There are also further points of criticism. Many meat and sausage products have brand names such as “Gut Ponholz”, which suggest small farms. In fact, the products came from large producers, it was said. Anyone who wants to support small farms in the region should “not be fooled by nice-sounding brand and product names, but rather check which manufacturer is behind the brand name”.
In addition, ingredients contained in animal feed are often imported from abroad – sometimes even from overseas. Furthermore, seven of the 13 products in the sample promised more information via a QR code on the packaging, but did not comply with this, according to consumer advocates.
Regional production also says nothing about the welfare of the animals. For eight products, the animal husbandry hardly exceeds the legal minimum standard. The consumer advice center recommends that anyone who values better animal husbandry should pay more attention to the currently voluntary label for animal husbandry identification with the number “3” or “4”.