2024-02-29 19:42:00
Statbel, the office which manages statistics in Belgium, has just published striking figures concerning the number of animals slaughtered here for food. In 2023, no less than 26 million animals will be slaughtered… every month. Or 312 million over the year.
What exactly is behind these numbers?
Of the 312 million animals slaughtered per year, 300 million are chickens. Next come pigs, cattle and turkeys. At first glance, this figure may seem surprising, but not so much because chickens represent 96% of all animals raised in Belgium. So they show a greater number of slaughters.
Another explanation: we export massively to our neighbors. And France comes first with 39% of Belgian chickens exported. Next come the Netherlands with 25% market share. The United Kingdom, 16% of Belgian chickens exported. And finally, Germany with 7% market share.
We export a lot, does that mean we also produce a lot of chickens?
Yes. If we look at poultry meat production in a much broader way, we can see that in Belgium it is very important. In 2022, a Flemish non-profit organization estimated that this production amounted to 442,000 tonnes.
From this figure, we can see that only 25,000 tonnes are intended for Belgium. This is more or less 2 kg of poultry meat per inhabitant. And the rest goes to export, goes abroad. This represents more or less 94% of our entire production in Belgium. And moreover, Belgium is the tenth largest exporter of poultry meat in the world.
meat chickens
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