Has Swiss meat consumption peaked?

Aaah or mmmm? Sadly for pigs, pork is the favourite meat in Switzerland Keystone

The amount of meat eaten in Switzerland decreased in 2015 for the first time in three years, with per capita consumption dropping by 2%. Consumers lost their appetite in particular for horse, veal and beef. 

Pork remains the most popular meat in Switzerland. Despite seeing a drop in consumption of 2.5%, it still makes up almost half the total meat consumption other than fish and crustaceans, according to industry umbrella group Proviande on Tuesday. 

Pork is followed by poultry, which increased by 2.7% and exceeded the 100,000-ton mark for the first time, and beef, which dropped by 1.9%. 

As in 2014, almost four-fifths of meat consumed was produced in Switzerland. 

The average price of all meat decreased by 2.2% compared with the previous year, reaching CHF20.44 ($21) a kilo. Pork and lamb were considerably cheaper, whereas lovers of beef and veal would have had to fork out a bit more than in 2014. 

There aren’t exact figures for the number of vegetarians in Switzerland, but the Swiss Vegetarian Association has told swissinfo.ch in the past that looking at other countries it reckoned 5% of Switzerland’s 8.2 million inhabitants didn’t eat meat and 0.5% were vegan.