Decrease in German meat production in 2023

German meat production experienced a significant decrease in 2023. Preliminary data from the Statistische Bundesamt (Destatis) shows that commercial slaughterhouses produced 6.8 million tons of meat last year. This represents a decrease of 4.0%, or 280,200 tons less than the previous year.

Since the peak year of 2016, with a production of 8.25 million tons, this marks the seventh consecutive year of decline. After relatively small decreases since 2017, production already fell by 8.1% in 2022 compared to the previous year. In 2023, this downward trend continued strongly. The slaughterhouses processed a total of 47.9 million pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and 702.2 million chickens, turkeys, and ducks.

Changes in pork production

The slaughter of pigs dropped to 43.8 million animals in 2023, a decrease of 7.0% or 3.3 million compared to the previous year. Particularly, the number of domestically sourced pigs slaughtered decreased by 7.7% to approximately 42.3 million animals. However, the number of imported pigs slaughtered in German facilities increased by 19.5% to 1.5 million animals. This resulted in a total pork production of about 4.2 million tons in 2023, a decrease of 6.8% or 306,500 tons compared to 2022. Compared to the record year of 2016, this is a decrease of about 1.4 million tons, amounting to a reduction of just over a quarter (-25.1%).

Beef production remains stable

The commercial slaughter of cattle slightly decreased by 0.3% to 3.0 million animals in 2023. Due to an increase in average slaughter weights across all cattle categories, however, beef production rose by 0.6% to 992,900 tons.

Increase in poultry production

There was a 1.4% increase in poultry meat production in 2023, resulting in 1.6 million tons. This rise is primarily due to a 1.1% increase in the production of young broiler meat, which reached 1.1 million tons. The production of turkey meat increased by 2.7% to 417,000 tons.

Destatis.de