Industry research
Meat
Scope
Europe
Companies
200
Key takeaways
What is the scope of this industry report?
The European meat market comprises businesses involved in producing meat and meat-based products. This production process mainly involves slaughtering, deboning, slicing, dicing and stripping. While some players adopt a meat-agnostic strategy in which they produce multiple types of meat, others solely focus on one type. As such, we segmented the European meat market into: (i) mixed, (ii) poultry, (iii) pork, (iv) beef & veal and (v) deli & processed meat.
What does the Meat market landscape look like in Europe?
The European meat industry is relatively fragmented but with a higher concentration at the national level due to its inherent local production and distribution nature. This is due to the limited ability to transport meat over long distances without freezing it, reducing quality and increasing operational costs. Nevertheless, the European market is export-dependent as the continent is a net meat exporter. At the same time, increasing local production in China and the declining number of animals for slaughter in Europe create a negative trend for the industry. Paired with rising consumer concerns for sustainability, the demand for meat is declining.
What is the level of investor activity in the European Meat industry?
Investor-led activity in the European meat market has been near non-existent, with ~6% of identified assets being sponsor-backed (March 2025). Declining European consumption on the back of sustainability and health concerns, stringent regulations, disease outbreaks reducing herds sizes and declining exports due to growing Chinese production and Brazilian meat represent the main deterrent for investors. On the other hand, attractive factors include ample opportunities for consolidation, growing global population and disposable income, growing demand for poultry meat and improved genetics and feed formulations.
What are the key ESG considerations in the European Meat industry?
ESG topics in the European meat market primarily relate to environmental and social issues. The animal agriculture industry significantly contributes to global emissions (~15-20%), deforestation and excessive water usage. In addition, the market is faced with animal welfare challenges. To mitigate these issues, players have attempted to adopt better farm management and precision-farming practices and use feed that improves animal digestion to reduce methane generation. From a social perspective, employees’ working conditions and consumer health are top of mind. Some companies attempt to reduce the use of antibiotics that may affect human health by applying measures along the lifecycle of farmed animals, including vaccines and the implementation of animal behaviour-tracking technology.
Company benchmarking
Market growth
Statista (August 2024) estimated the European fresh and processed meat market at ~€350bn in 2023 and forecasted it to grow to ~€465bn by 2029 (+5% CAGR)
Meat consumption in Europe amounted to ~53kg per capita in 2024 and was estimated to decline to ~52kg per capita by 2033, registering -0.3% CAGR over the period (OECD, March 2025)
Positive drivers
Growing global population and disposable income, particularly in Asia and Africa, paired with intensifying urbanisation and fast-food development in emerging economies will fuel demand for meat imports from Europe (European Commission, January 2025; OECD-FAO, July 2023)
Growing religious diversity and consumers favouring leaner and less resource-intensive poultry meat will continue to provide growth opportunities for European poultry meat producers (The Poultry Site, November 2024)
Development related to improved animal genetics, farm management and better feed formulations allow players to increase breeding rates and animal slaughter weight (OECD-FAO, July 2024; OECD-FAO, June 2021)
Negative drivers
Declining red meat consumption in Europe amid growing popularity of vegetarian, vegan and other alternative diets. To illustrate, ~51% of meat consumers have reduced their meat intake in 2023, particularly in Germany, France and Italy (GFI Europe, November 2023; European Commission, January 2025; proveg international, February 2024)
Geopolitical tensions related to armed conflicts (e.g. Russian invasion of Ukraine) and potential tariffs, as well as animal disease outbreaks negatively affect meat production, internal EU demand and exports (FeedNavigator, March 2025; IICA, February 2023; European Commission, January 2025)
EU regulations on sustainable farming threaten the profitability through incremental investments and compliance costs. This is combined with disruptions of farming cycles, water supplies and yield crops caused by global warming (European Commission, January 2025; FAIRR, May 2022; Le Monde, October 2024)
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