What Is The Most Consumed Meat In The World?

Hen can usually really feel just like the default animal protein in the US. Virtually each restaurant menu consists of at the least a handful of hen dishes, and grocery store rotisserie chicken is a dinner staple stateside. (It appears the phrase “winner, winner, hen dinner” exists for a motive.) Regardless of the American obsession with poultry, essentially the most consumed meat on the planet is surprisingly not hen. On a worldwide scale, essentially the most consumed meat is the other white meat (which is actually red meat): pork.

Pork accounts for roughly 36% of whole international meat consumption, in keeping with information collected by the United Nations Meals and Agriculture Group and shared by the United States Department of Agriculture. Poultry takes a detailed second at 33%, adopted by beef at 24%, and goats and sheep convey up the rear with a decent 5%. Unsurprisingly, given our love for fried chicken chains (some of which are expanding in 2025), hen is the preferred meat within the U.S. Knowledge by Statista exhibits that the typical American consumed 102.1 kilos of broiler hen in 2024 and 59.2 kilos of beef, the second hottest meat. Pork was the third hottest with People consuming 50.7 kilos per capita. Demand for pork and beef has truly been on the decline stateside lately. (By many measures, Americans somehow aren’t eating enough bacon.) Nonetheless, the remainder of the world greater than compensates for our lack of pork consumption.

For fried hen chain-obsessed, burger-loving People, the truth that pork is essentially the most consumed meat on the planet could come as a little bit of a shock, particularly contemplating that billions of individuals don’t eat pork for spiritual or cultural causes. Nonetheless, there are many those that do eat pork, and many it. 

In response to World Population Review, in 2022, the typical Chinese language individual consumed 88.62 kilos of pork. World Population Review additionally reported that, throughout this 12 months, the typical Chinese language individual ate 38.58 kilos of hen. That is in comparison with the 65.26 kilos of pork and the 116.91 kilos of hen People ate per capita throughout this 12 months. While you consider that China is residence to 1.4 billion folks, over quadruple the inhabitants of the US, pork’s dominance on a worldwide scale begins to make much more sense. (It makes much more sense if you study that international locations together with Spain, Montenegro, and Croatia consumed greater than 120 kilos of pork per capita throughout 2022.)

The rationale folks eat a lot pork is fairly easy. Pig meat is a comparatively inexpensive, nutritious, and versatile animal protein choice that has been broadly consumed by people worldwide for hundreds of years. From Spanish-style hams to Korean bossam, pork varieties the bottom of beloved staple dishes in lots of cultures throughout the globe. Though hen stays in competitors with pork for the title of the world’s most consumed meat, it is secure to say that folks can be having fun with loads of pork in all it is scrumptious varieties for the foreseeable future.