Poultrymeat accounted for all of the increase in UK meat supplies during the first half of 2026, more than offsetting declines in beef, pigmeat and sheepmeat.
Despite cost of living pressures, and the ongoing adverse publicity surrounding sustainability issues, total meat consumption in the UK reached a new record of 2.58 million tonnes in the first half of this year, according to latest data from Defra. This marks a rise of 19,000 tonnes on the first six months of 2025, amounting to three-quarters of a per cent.
The figures are expressed as supplies reaching the market and are adjusted to carcase weight equivalents, taking account of home production, imports and exports, but excluding manufactured products such as canned foods.
The increase in meat consumption is characterised by a much larger rise in poultrymeat demand, against a background of reduced consumption of the other more expensive meat categories including beef, pigmeat and sheepmeat.
In total, poultry consumption was up by 46,200 tonnes in the first six months of this year, to 1.26 mt. This amounted to a sizeable increase of 3.8% on the same period of last year.
Other proteins decline
The other principal meat categories showed a combined fall of 27,000 tonnes. Beef consumption was down by 2,500 t (to 530,000t); mutton and lamb by 4,600t (to 131,000t); and pork and bacon by 19,900t (to 665,000t).
This took poultrymeat’s share of the carcase meat market to 48.7%, with pigmeat second at 25.8%, beef at 20.5% and sheepmeat at 5%.
With poultrymeat’s popularity rising so sharply, domestic production lagged behind the extra demand. Although the UK industry achieved an overall rise in output of 2% year-on-year during the first half, it was only able to meet under half of the extra consumption.
Total UK output of all poultry meat was up by 18,600 tonnes during the period. At the same time, more home production was retained for domestic consumption, with a significant fall in exports of 17,000 t.
In addition, imports increased by 10,600 t year-on-year, so that they took a 27.4% share of all UK consumption.
