Greek households are tending to reduce their consumption of meat based on a study conducted by MARC on behalf of the Food Expo trade fair and published in the magazine “Meat News” on Tuesday.
Rates of meat consumption are traditionally high in the country, with 96 pct of households consuming meat at least once a week, four in 10 households eating meat twice a week and roughly the same percentage eating meat three or more times a week.
The rate is tending to drop off, however, with 38 pct of households reporting that they now eat less meat in comparison with two or three years earlier. Another 54 pct say their meat consumption is unchanged and just 7 pct report an increase in meat consumption in the last two to three years.
Reasons cited for reducing meat consumption include financial difficulties due to the economic crisis, health reasons or changes in dietary habits.
Greeks continue to prefer their local butcher for meat purchases (68.5 pct) though supermarkets are slowly but steadily gaining market share (21.2 pct) and 6.5 pct prefer big meat markets/ hypermarkets. Just 3.5 pct say they buy meat directly from livestock breeders.
The most popular choice
Chicken continues to be the meat most frequently consumed, with consumption rising during the crisis, while fresh, unpackaged meat is the most popular choice over frozen or ready packaged meats.
Roughly 16 pct of consumers participating in the survey claimed to buy organic meat products but, when asked in more detail, appeared to have varying definitions of ‘organic’ and often confused the term with “good quality”, free range, non-industrial or meat bought from small-scale producers.
Processed meat products, such as ready-to-cook patties, souvlaki, roasts, kebabs and other products are consumed by roughly one third of consumers, with 12 pct of households buying them at least once a month.
Despite the fact that an overwhelming percentage of meat sold on the Greek market is imported, nine in 10 of those taking the survey stated that they usually buy meats produced in Greece, thus indicating a serious discrepancy between what consumers think they are buying and what they get.
On average, the amounts spent by Greek households on meat purchases per week are 24 euros and, despite the crisis, more than one in two households (56.2 pct) said they would pay more to buy better quality meat than they usually find.
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