Why changing demand, market concentration and new production structures are forcing companies to act
As part of a project in the meat industry, HANSE Interim took a closer look at the sector, its structures and current market developments. What emerged was a market that, at first glance, is difficult to sum up in a single trend.
While domestic meat production remains well below previous peaks and the number of pig farms has been declining for years, meat consumption in Germany has now increased for three consecutive years. At the same time, demand is shifting between different types of meat and market segments.
Germany’s meat industry is not disappearing. But its structures are changing fundamentally.
For companies, this raises a crucial question: Do capacities, cost structures, product portfolios and organisations still fit a market that operates differently today than it did ten years ago?
Meat consumption is rising again. But it is changing.
Per capita meat consumption in Germany reached 54.9 kilograms in 2025, 1.4 kilograms more than in the previous year. According to preliminary calculations by Germany’s Federal Information Centre for Agriculture (BZL), total meat consumption rose to 4.6 million tonnes.
The underlying trend is particularly noteworthy: meat consumption has now increased for three consecutive years. There is currently little evidence of a continuous move away from meat.
However, the composition of consumption is changing. Pork remains by far the most important category at 28.3 kilograms per capita. Poultry, meanwhile, reached an all-time high of 14.7 kilograms in 2025 and now accounts for almost 27 per cent of total meat consumption.
This already reveals one of the defining characteristics of the industry’s transformation: it is not simply the overall volume that matters. What matters is what consumers demand and how quickly production structures can adapt.
Production and farms: the long-term trend is clear
On the production side, the picture looks different.
In 2024, German slaughterhouses produced around 6.9 million tonnes of meat. Although this marked the first increase since 2016, the industry remains well below its previous peak.
The development is particularly striking in pork. Around 4.3 million tonnes were produced in 2024, 1.3 million tonnes less than in the record year of 2016. This represents a decline of almost 25 per cent.
The number of farms has changed even more dramatically. In November 2025, Germany had 15,190 pig farms. Their number had fallen by 40.9 per cent within ten years.
The pig population declined considerably less over the same period. As a result, the remaining farms have become larger on average.
The industry is therefore experiencing more than a change in production volumes. It is becoming increasingly concentrated.
This has consequences for slaughtering and processing companies. Procurement, supplier relationships, locations and capacities must align with an upstream production structure that looks very different today from the one that existed a decade ago.
Organic meat shows how differently market segments can develop
The organic market provides another example of why structural change cannot simply be equated with declining demand.
Germany’s organic food market reached a new record of approximately EUR 18.2 billion in 2025. Within the meat category, however, developments vary considerably.
Organic poultry was among the strongly growing product categories in 2025, with sales volumes increasing by 16.7 per cent. Domestic organic pork production, by contrast, remains very small. In 2024, its share of total pork production was just 0.9 per cent. At the same time, supply remains tight and is partly supplemented by imports.
Organic meat therefore illustrates a development that extends far beyond this particular segment. The key question is not simply whether a market is growing or shrinking. It is whether production capacity, processing structures and product portfolios exist where demand is emerging.
Structural change can therefore mean reducing capacity. But it can just as easily mean redirecting it.
High material costs meet changing market structures
Meat processing is a business with a high share of material costs. Changes in raw material prices, product mix, yields and capacity utilisation therefore have an immediate impact on profitability.
Price trends can also differ significantly within the industry. In 2025, for example, producer prices for beef were substantially higher than in the previous year, while pork prices declined.
A general statement about “cost pressure” in the meat industry therefore does not tell the whole story.
For an individual company, what matters is which raw materials it processes, which products it produces from them, what yields it achieves and at what prices those products can be sold.
This makes contribution margins, customer profitability, product costing and reliable profit centre accounting increasingly important.
At the same time, market structures continue to consolidate. In 2025, Germany’s Monopolies Commission identified increasing concentration both in food retail and in parts of the food industry. Around 85 per cent of German food retail is now accounted for by four major corporate groups.
Consolidation is also continuing within the meat industry itself. One indication of how far this development has progressed came in 2025, when the German Federal Cartel Office prohibited Tönnies from acquiring several Vion sites. In some regional markets, the transaction would have resulted in market shares significantly above 40 per cent.
Scale and economies of scale are therefore becoming increasingly important. But scale alone does not solve a profitability problem.
Structural change happens in the market. It has to be managed within the company.
We experienced first-hand how quickly structural pressure can expose operational weaknesses in the HANSE Interim project mentioned at the beginning of this article.
A meat cutting company in northern Germany had run into financial difficulties. It lacked integrated planning tools for profitability and liquidity. Contribution margin calculations and product costing were not sufficiently integrated, while financial data was available too late and lacked the necessary level of detail.
An Interim CRO from the HANSE Interim network assumed operational responsibility during the insolvency proceedings. In addition to stabilising operations and securing production, a robust profit centre accounting system was established. This created transparency about which areas of the business were economically viable and which options remained realistic.
The company was able to continue operating in a modified form. The business unit returned to profitability and around 400 jobs were secured.
The case demonstrates why transparency is particularly important in a market characterised by changing volumes, high material costs and increasing concentration. The more rapidly the environment changes, the less a company can afford to operate without a clear view of its own economics.
Read the project story: Pressed the “reset button” in the food operation!
What companies should be reviewing now
The current figures do not paint a picture of an industry in crisis. But they clearly show that existing structures cannot simply be carried forward unchanged.
For management teams and owners, several questions therefore deserve particular attention:
- Which products and customers actually make a positive contribution to earnings?
- Do production capacities and locations match expected demand?
- Where are costs being generated by low utilisation, complex product ranges or inefficient processes?
- Which market segments are growing, and can the company serve them profitably?
- Where can automation and digitalisation genuinely improve productivity?
- Are planning, costing and reporting systems robust enough to identify changes at an early stage?
Companies that answer these questions before financial pressure builds have room to manoeuvre. Those that wait until liquidity becomes tight often have to make decisions under much less favourable conditions..
Conclusion: Not less meat. A different meat industry.
Meat consumption is rising again. At the same time, production remains well below previous peaks. Poultry is gaining ground, organic meat is growing in selected segments, the number of farms is declining and the value chain is becoming increasingly concentrated.
This does not point to the end of Germany’s meat industry.
It points to an industry that is reorganising itself.
For companies, the real challenge is therefore not to predict every market movement. It is to understand their own position and to assess early enough whether their business model, capacities and organisation still fit the market.
Structural change cannot be prevented. But companies can decide whether they shape it or are forced to react to it.
Best Regards
Andreas Lau and Özlem Parakenings
for HANSE Interim
Sources
Federal Information Centre for Agriculture (BZL): Meat Supply Balance 2025
Federal Statistical Office (Destatis): “Meat production up 1.4% in 2024”, 7 February 2025
Federal Statistical Office (Destatis): Pig population and number of pig farms, 2025 livestock survey
Federal Statistical Office (Destatis): Producer price developments, 2025
Monopolies Commission: Special Report 84, “Competition in the Food Supply Chain”, 2025
German Federal Cartel Office: Decision prohibiting Tönnies’ acquisition of Vion slaughterhouses, 12 June 2025
German Federation of the Organic Food Industry (BÖLW): Organic Sector Report 2026
Ökolandbau information portal: Market data on organic meat production and organic processing structures
HANSE Interim: Project story “Pressing the reset button in a food processing company”
