Press release No. N 018 of 17 March 2023
- Meat production down 14% from 2017 to 2022
- Prices of meat and meat products rose above average in 2022 from 2021
- Per-capita consumption of meat fell by 12% within ten years
WIESBADEN – Germany exports decreasing amounts of meat. Just under 2.9 million tonnes of meat and meat products were exported in 2022, most of which went to other European Union (EU) countries. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that this was a decrease of 6.9% from the previous year. Meat exports fell by 19.3% in the last five years. In 2017, just under 3.6 million tonnes of meat were exported from Germany. Especially the exports of pork decreased markedly over the last five years. In 2022, pork (just under 1.5 million tonnes) accounted for just over half (50.5%) of German meat exports. From 2017 to 2022, the quantity of meat exported fell by just over one fifth (-20.4%). Exports of beef declined by 11.4% to just over 254,000 tonnes in the same period. The quantity of poultry meat exported remained rather constant (-0.2%) and amounted to just under 481,500 tonnes. One of the reasons for decreasing meat exports probably is import restrictions in importing countries such as China. In 2017, 9.7% of all meat exports went to China, while in 2022 the rate was just 0.1%. Livestock in Germany decreased, too.
