As reported by the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), commercial slaughterhouses in Germany produced 5.9% less meat than in the same period of the previous year, and 9.4% less flesh of pigs was produced than in the first half of 2022.
The country has been exporting more pigs as they have been breeding less. At 20.9 million pigs, the number of animals of domestic origin slaughtered fell by 10.0%. The 741,300 pigs from other countries killed represent an increase of 19.6% compared to the same period last year when 619,700 pigs were killed from overseas.
However, although companies in Germany slaughtered around 1.4 million cows and bulls in the first half of 2023, which is a decrease of 0.1% compared with previous year, the amount of cow flesh produced rose by 0.9% to 481,500 tons in the survey period compared to the first half of 2022.
Despite declining since 2017, pig flesh has accounted for the largest share of commercial meat production in Germany for many years (as pig sausages are very popular in this country). In the first half of 2023, 62.0% of the meat produced came from pigs. This was followed by chicken meat with a share of 23.2% and cows with 14.5%. The flesh from sheep, goats, and horses (yes, some Germans eat horses too) accounted for only around 0.4% of the total production.
In 2022, German companies produced 6.5% more meat alternatives compared to the previous year, and production increased by an impressive 72.7% compared to 2019.
In April 2023, Germany’s Federal Information Centre for Agriculture revealed that meat consumption per capita in the country fell by around 4.2 kg to 52 kg per person in 2022 compared with the previous year, which is lower than it has been since calculations began in 1989.
