German Meat Consumption Falls to Record Low of 52kg per Person

Germans ate less meat in 2022 than in any year since records began, averaging just 52kg per person, according to preliminary figures from the Federal Information Centre for Agriculture (BZL), part of the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE).

That's a drop of around 4.2kg per person in a single year, and the lowest figure since the calculations started in 1989.

Pork took the biggest hit. Germans each ate about 2.8kg less pork than in 2021, along with 900g less beef and veal and 400g less poultry. Domestic production fell too, with net pork production down 9.8%, beef and veal down 8.2% and poultry down 2.9%.

For a country famous for its sausages, this is a remarkable shift, and it continues a long-term trend. vegconomist points out that Germany's own Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said last year that "we will have to eat much less meat".

Jasmijn de Boo, Vice President of ProVeg International, said in a statement:

We're really pleased to see the continued decline in meat consumption in Germany, which has been helped by people following flexitarian diets.

This is good news for the environment, for people's health and, of course, for animals.

Every kilo counts. The World Health Organization classifies processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen, the same category as tobacco smoke, which is why UK bacon sales slumped by £123 million the year after the warning. Eating less of it is one of the simplest things anyone can do for their long-term health.

Germany has been leading this shift for a while. Back in 2017 the environment ministry banned meat at official functions, in 2020 the country's biggest sausage maker started selling more veggie than meat, and last year we reported that Germans were eating less meat than at any time since records began. Now they've beaten that record too.

Auf Wiedersehen, Schnitzel. Hallo, Zukunft.