Executive summary The world of meat marketing is a happy place. It’s dominated by the colour green and populated with idyllic farmhouses and free-range animals on lush pastures. In this world children crave Vienna sausages, ‘real’ men devour red meat and women eat thin-sliced chicken to stay healthy. In this world, eating meat brings people together. However, behind this carefully constructed dream the meat industry is selling us, lies a different reality.
Growing global meat consumption is fuelling the climate crisis, with the production of animal-based foods (and the feed for those farm animals) accounting for 19% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent study.3 Animal farming has a disproportionate climate impact compared to plant-based food, accounting for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production.4 But this hasn’t stopped the meat industry running campaigns of misinformation and manipulation designed to drive up meat consumption in European markets where vegetarianism, veganism and flexitarianism are on the rise.5
This report is the result of research into the culture of meat marketing in France, Poland, Spain, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. It looks at over 51 brands, and the strategies and symbols adopted by them to exploit people’s need to feel accepted, successful, loved, respected and ultimately, to feel ‘good’. Their goal is to create new, or reinforce old, attitudes and beliefs towards meat and ensure that consumption of animal products remains cemented in today’s society and culture.
dissected The 7 Myths of Big Meat’s Marketing
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