German meat exports fall 19% in the last 5 years

According to data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), in 2022 Germany exported almost 2.9 million tons of meat and meat products, mostly to other European Union (EU) countries. This represents a drop of 6.9% compared to the previous year. Over the past five years, meat exports have fallen by 19.3%. In 2017, Germany exported almost 3.6 million t of meat. By category, 1.5 million t of pork was exported in 2022 (50.5% of total exports), down 20.4% over the past five years. Beef exports fell by 11.4% to 254,000 t, but exports of poultry meat remained relatively constant (-0.2%), at about 481,500 t. Import restrictions in consumer countries such as China are likely one of the reasons for the decrease in meat exports. While 9.7% of all meat exports went to China in 2017, this figure was only 0.1% in 2022. A similar trend can be observed in meat imports: in 2022, Germany imported 2 million t of meat, mainly from other EU countries, which represents a 4.5% decrease compared to ...