Meat demand is waning globally thanks to a surge higher for prices coming at a time when the global consumer sentiment is starting to see a shift toward plant-based diets.
While it’s still too early to see a broad global data point that captures the decline, regional sales figures along with interviews with consumers, food sellers, analysts and experts across the globe point to a clear trend: Meat demand is under what looks to be a long-term threat, Bloomberg News reports.
Even as a decline in global production is likely to be embraced by climate advocates, it’s not a universal good. For the world’s poor, eating less meat can mean the loss of a key source of nutrients not easily replaced with other foods.
Here are some snapshots from across the globe that capture the trend:
U.S.
In Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, April Harris has noticed higher prices, particularly on ground beef. She shops around, often at local stores like Rico Fresh Market, to find the best deals — something she didn’t have to do before the price inflation that’s really taken hold this year.
In the U.S., retail ground-beef prices have surged about 6% since before the pandemic. In May, fresh meat retail sales were down more than 12% compared with a year ago, according to NielsenIQ data.
Harris’ two children, ages 11 and 14, have noticed she’s buying less at the store, and relying more on food pantries for meals. “They ask me questions like, ‘Mom is everything OK,’ or they’ll be like, ‘why didn’t you buy this this month?’ And I’m like, ‘Mom has to save money,’ and it’s hard when I have to explain that to my kids.”
“I penny pinch. I use coupons.”
Nigeria
Lateef Adeoye has been selling meat for more than 50 years at the Ketu Market in Lagos. These days he’s buying about half of what he used to from his beef suppliers because customer demand has shrunk so much. Sometimes he’s forced to end up selling at just break-even prices, or even at a loss.
“We can’t put too much meat on display now because it’s too expensive,” he said.
“The business has crashed.”
When Meat Is Unaffordable
Income is a major driver of meat consumption
Note: Chart shows data for 173 distinct economies. GDP per capita (based on purchasing power parity) and population data for 2019. Meat supply is the food available for human consumption (production and imports less exports) and data is for 2018.
Sources: The World Bank, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
U.K.
Sales at Meatless Farm, a British maker of plant-based proteins, quadrupled last year and are predicted to repeat that this year, according to Morten Toft Bech, the founder and chief executive officer. The company is adding to its product offerings and expanding in new markets.
“The real challenge is just to keep improving our products both in terms of the texture and taste but also in terms of the health profile, so they are really standing out as healthy alternative,” he said.
China
Du Wenhui, a cashier at a Lanzhou beef noodles restaurant in downtown Beijing, said the small restaurant has to bear the cost of high beef and now egg prices because it’s very hard to pass it on to consumers. A bowl of noodles is typically seen as one of the cheapest food options around, and raising prices would deter customers looking for a quick, affordable meal.
To cope with the surge in costs, portions have been cut. One can barely see any pieces of meat in the small bowl of noodles with soup, which costs about $3. An additional portion of meat will cost an extra $1.
South Africa
Mary Moyo, 56, is a domestic worker in Johannesburg and has four children. Her monthly pay was cut by 30% last year and her family has gone from eating animal protein, including red meat, three or four times a week back in 2019 to only eating meat, mostly chicken, on weekends now.
“We’re mostly living on tinned stuff like just beans and fish even though those prices have also gone up,” Moyo said, adding that she’s worried about the health of her 87-year mother, who is noticeably losing weight.
“I think she is getting less nutrition in her food.”
— Leslie Patton in Chicago, Prinesha Naidoo in Johannesburg and Tope Alake in Lagos
Charted Territory
Eating Out
Britons flocked to restaurants after hospitality reopened last month
Source: Bloomberg analysis of OpenTable data
Note: Seven-day average. Figures through week to June 21
From abattoirs to restaurant kitchens, the U.K. food sector is facing a massive challenge this summer: There just aren’t enough workers. The food industry, already facing labor shortages because of Brexit and the pandemic, is now being stretched to capacity as the country reopens. Warehouses and farms are short of labor, threatening to choke food supply flows, while local pubs and Michelin-starred restaurants are having to restrict service and boost wages for chefs and waiting staff.
Today’s Must Reads
- City farming | When Argentina’s economy collapsed in 2001, many residents of Rosario, the country’s third-largest city, suddenly found themselves unemployed and without food.
- Withering cherries | Unprecedented early heat across the U.S. Northwest could spell bad news for Washington state’s cherries.
- Chocolate boom | Ghana is heading for a record cocoa harvest after favorable weather and government interventions boosted output in the No. 2 producer, according to two people familiar with the matter.
- Nature’s wrath | The world is counting on farmers in North America for big harvests of everything from corn to canola this year. Due to weird weather patterns, growers will likely come up short.
- Palm reading | Indonesia, supplier of more than half the planet’s palm oil, enjoyed the highest output in seven months in June and is on course to deliver record production this year, helping to ease a global crunch in edible oils.
- Sugar high | The low-profile billionaire behind the maker of Nutella spread and Ferrero Rocher chocolates is busy carving out an empire of comfort foods, seemingly less governed by the health and nutrition trend that’s gripped his bigger rivals.
- Greener farms | The European Union reached a provisional agreement to overhaul its massive farming policy in an effort to make it simpler and more sustainable, in sync with the bloc’s unprecedented strategy to reach climate neutrality.
On the Bloomberg Terminal
- Corn risk | The outcome of one of the most significant tests in history of the primary factor in agriculture commodities — supply elasticity — should be in soon, and we see elevated risks of more price pressure toward $4 for corn, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
- Food-price outlook | Supply normalization may be the key theme for global agriculture in 2H as weather threats ease, allowing prices to fall and cool inflation concerns, Bloomberg Intelligence writes.
- Use the AHOY function to track global commodities trade flows.
- Click HERE for automated stories about supply chains.
- See BNEF for BloombergNEF’s analysis of clean energy, advanced transport, digital industry, innovative materials, and commodities.
- Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus and here for maps and charts.
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— With assistance by Shuping Niu, and Agnieszka de Sousa
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