Meat consumption crossroads

Every year humans slaughter about 85 billion land-based animals for meat. Historically, growth in the number of animals slaughtered was driven by both human population growth and the number of animals slaughtered per person. However, since 2019, the number of land-animals slaughtered for meat per person has stabilized to approximately 10.5 per year. Interestingly that change is driven by both high and low-income countries while middle-income countries still increasing animal slaughter per capita. This complicates forecasting global meat consumption as it is unclear how much meat people will consume as their wealth increases.

Source: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (2023).