During the corona pandemic, sales of organic products have risen to new heights. Swiss consumers bought more organic food than ever before. However, as the “Tages-Anzeiger” writes in relation to label statistics from Swiss animal protection, sales of organic and other label meat have fallen in recent years. Specifically, the proportion of label meat compared to conventional beef products fell from 36.6 percent to 31.9 percent between 2020 and 2021 - that's almost five percent. A similar decrease can be seen for pork. The proportion of animal welfare products fell from 35 to 30.5 percent in the same period. Chicken production with a label remains at eight percent - although the Swiss now consume around twice as much chicken as they did 40 years ago.

Label products up to twice as expensive

The proportion of labeled animals compared to all animals slaughtered in Switzerland was twelve percent in 2021. That is a drop of 0.2 percent compared to 2020. According to Stefan Flückiger, co-head of the STS, we are currently dealing with an “animal welfare crisis”. The dramatization is probably taking place with a view to the vote on the factory farming initiative next autumn. Animal protection therefore assumes that farmers who do not use label production do not keep their animals in a species-appropriate manner. However, this claim hardly stand up to reality. Animal protection believes the decline in the consumption of label meat is primarily explained by the prices. In some cases, a label product costs almost twice as much as meat from conventional production. According to Flückiger, consumers have become more price-sensitive during the corona pandemic. Economist Mathias Binswanger provides a supplementary explanation according to the “Tages-Anzeiger”. Retailers such as Migros and Coop are using their market power to drive up prices for premium customers. When it comes to conventional meat, however, they are engaged in a bitter price war.