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 Meat consumption is stable or declining in most developed countries
but the shift is particularly striking in Germany, Europe's biggest
pork producer and home to 1,500 varieties of sausage including
Berlin's favorite, the "Curry-Wurst."
The change in eating habits is steady rather than spectacular, but
the food industry is facing up to the fact that the sausage - and
meat in general - will no longer hold such a revered place in German
national culture.
Germans are not about to ditch their habits and traditions. The
Greens party stirred an outcry in 2013 by proposing that canteens
for public sector workers should serve only vegetarian meals one day
a week. Also, while the large Muslim minority avoids pork, other
meats such as lamb remain popular with its members.
Nevertheless, overall meat consumption dropped last year to 60.1 kgs
per person from 62.8 in 2011. While that was well above the global
average, it is still about half that eaten by the average American.
The trend is likely to continue in a country that has a small but
growing community of vegetarians; market data firm Euromonitor
predicts German fresh meat consumption will fall 2.9 percent by
2019, after a dip of 1.2 percent in 2014, the biggest recorded drop
in the world apart from recession-hit Greece.
"People are tired of the many scandals and there is great interest
in how animals are treated and what impact my consumption has on
other parts of the world," said Christina Chemnitz, agriculture
expert at the Heinrich Boell Institute, a think tank linked to the
Greens party in Germany.
Germans' worries are wide, ranging from antibiotics in meat and the
welfare effects of large-scale "factory farming" to the felling of
rain forest to make way for crops grown not for humans but to fatten
up livestock.
About 50,000 people took to the streets in Berlin in January to
demonstrate for better conditions for animals and against
genetically modified organisms in agriculture, a technology used in
producing grains also destined for livestock feed.
They also rallied against a proposed free trade agreement between
the European Union and United States that they fear will erode food
standards.
Germany has a long tradition of environmentalism and an influential
Greens party which won 8.4 percent of the vote in 2013, but
vegetarian options were relatively rare in mainstream restaurants
and stores until the last decade or so.
That is now changing fast. The number of vegetarians in Germany has
doubled in the last seven years to about 3.7 percent of the
population, while a survey has shown that 60 percent of Germans
would be willing to cut their meat consumption, largely due to
concerns about health and animal welfare.
That helps explain why the world's biggest burger chain McDonald's
Corp is struggling in Germany, along with other developed markets,
prompting it to try to improve its environmental credentials and
offer a healthier menu.
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CATERING TO VEGETARIANS
The German food industry is likewise responding, offering more
vegetarian and vegan options. It is also promising to do more to
improve animal welfare and make supply chains more transparent,
particularly after a scandal in 2013 when horsemeat was found in
products labeled as beef across Europe.
Consumption of meat in Germans' homes has fallen most significantly,
while sales from the ubiquitous sausage and kebab stands are more
stable, according to Thomas Els, a market researcher at consultancy
AMI.
"People are not becoming vegetarians en masse but moral and ethical
considerations are playing more of a role," he said.
Sales of frozen meat substitutes rose more than a quarter a year
between 2009 and 2014, the fastest growth in the world, according to
Euromonitor.
The biggest supermarket chain Edeka recently launched "Vegithek"
counters in 50 stores serving meat-free versions of popular dishes
such as sausage, Schnitzel and cold sliced delicacies. It has also
joined other leading retailers in a promise to pay 4 cents per kg of
meat sold into a fund to promote better conditions for animals.
Even the sausage industry is changing. Mario Ziervogel, whose family
has sold sausages in Berlin since 1930, added a soya-based version
of the Curry-Wurst - pork sausage smothered with a curry-flavored
ketchup - to his menu two years ago.
"You have to be flexible and keep up with the trends to have a
successful business," Ziervogel said as customers lined up to order
lunch in his Kult-Curry restaurant in eastern Berlin, estimating
about 5 percent of sausages he sells are vegetarian.
"Earlier it was enough to have Bockwurst, Wiener or Knacker
sausages. Now they are out of fashion. Then came Curry-Wurst with
skin or skinless, then came chicken sausage. Then a customer came in
and asked for a vegetarian sausage," he said. "The next we will
introduce will be vegan."
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