The growth space of per capita pork consumption is limited, and the proportion of pork in the meat consumption structure is down. These things that the pig industry does not want to see have happened. In other words, China’s Lbx Pharmacy Chain Joint Stock Company(603883) preference for pork is declining.
On April 7, Zhu zengyong, chief analyst of monitoring and early warning of the whole pork industry chain of the Ministry of agriculture and rural areas, told China business news that China’s pork consumption may increase slightly and then decrease in the future.
Shen Yuanbing, a researcher of brick consulting, said that in the future, the growth point of pork product consumption will not increase significantly in the traditional consumption mode. It is difficult to realize the industry profit by relying on the massive growth of pork consumption, but there is still a lot of space in prefabricated dishes, high-end products and so on.
pork’s proportion in meat consumption decreased
According to the research of Zhu zengyong’s team, in terms of population, China’s annual per capita apparent pork consumption has decreased slightly for five consecutive years since 2015. Although it rebounded in 2021, with a significant year-on-year increase of 24.5%, it has not exceeded the highest level in 2014.
Based on the annual per capita apparent consumption of pork, China reached 11.77 kg in 1981, exceeding the world average (11.72 kg). As China’s output continued to rise, it reached 30 kg in 1995. Subsequently, affected by China’s output, it decreased in 1996 and 1997 and exceeded 30 kg again in 1998. Then, driven by the increase of China’s supply, it reached 42.63 kg in 2014, reaching the highest level, an increase of 36.0% over 2000 and an average annual growth rate of 2.2%.
However, from 2015, the indicators began to decline due to the decline of China’s output, the adjustment and optimization of meat consumption structure and the national restriction on “three public” consumption. From 2015 to 2018, it fluctuated around 40kg. In 2019, affected by the African swine plague, it plummeted to 31.7 kg. In 2020, it rebounded to 32.2kg, with a year-on-year increase of 1.58%. In 2021, with the recovery of production capacity and the growth of consumer demand, it will reach 40.1kg.
Further breakdown, the gap between urban and rural pork consumption is gradually narrowing.
Taking the annual per capita household pork consumption as the index, according to the data of the National Bureau of statistics, in 1995, urban residents were much higher than rural residents, 17.2kg and 10.7kg respectively, and the former was 1.61 times higher than the latter. Subsequently, the per capita household pork consumption in urban and rural areas began to grow slowly, and the gap was narrowing.
The per capita household pork consumption of urban residents has shown a fluctuating downward trend since reaching the historical high of 21.2kg in 2012. From 2017 to 2019, it was 20.6kg, 22.7kg and 20.3kg respectively. The per capita household pork consumption of rural residents also began to stabilize after continuous growth. In recent years, it has been basically maintained at about 19kg, and from 2017 to 2019, it was 19.5kg, 23kg and 20.2kg respectively.
From the long cycle from 2000 to 2019, the average annual growth rate of per capita household pork consumption of urban and rural residents was 1.2% and 2.2% respectively. The consumption gap narrowed from 3.5kg to 0.1kg. In 2018, rural residents exceeded urban residents for the first time.
Zhu Yong explained that the per capita pork consumption gap between urban and rural residents has narrowed significantly due to the rapid growth of pork consumption between urban and rural residents.
It is noteworthy that the proportion of pork in residents’ meat consumption has a downward trend for both urban and rural residents.
For a long time, pork has occupied the dominant position of meat consumption in the Chinese table. In 2000, pork accounted for 65.3% and 77.8% of household meat consumption in urban and rural areas respectively. With the upgrading of consumption of urban and rural residents and the popularization of health concept, the sources of meat in China tend to be more diversified, and the proportion of pork continues to decline. In 2020, urban and rural areas will fall to 52.1% and 53.8% respectively.
At the same time, the proportion of poultry meat in household meat consumption is increasing. From 2000 to 2020, urban residents increased from 21.3% to 35.6%, and rural residents increased from 16.3% to 39.0%. The proportion of beef and mutton is relatively small.
the growth rate of pork consumption will slow down in the future
There is no doubt that pork is still the most important meat consumed by Chinese people, but the decline in the proportion of pork in household meat consumption not only gives a new atmosphere to China’s human meat consumption pattern, but also should arouse the vigilance of the pig industry.
In 2018, African swine fever broke out in China, which led to a sharp rise in pork prices in 2019 and 2020. Poultry meat occupied part of pork consumption, resulting in a drop in the proportion of pork in household meat consumption from about 65% before to about 55%.
Although with China’s pork production basically returning to normal in 2021, the proportion of pork in household meat consumption also rebounded to 65%, the transformation of meat consumption pattern is already on the way.
Shen Yuanbing said that on the whole, the per capita pork consumption of Chinese residents is close to saturation, and it is difficult to maintain the trend of sustained and rapid growth in pork demand in the later stage in the past 30 years. It is expected that the average annual growth rate of pork consumption will slow down to 1.5% – 2.0% in the next five years, mainly driven by the consumption of rural areas and the population from new agriculture to non agriculture.
Zhu zengyong also mentioned that pork is still the largest meat consumption variety in China due to factors such as cooking habits. However, in 2021, China’s per capita pork consumption has exceeded 40kg, and the pork consumption demand will tend to be stable, which is expected to fluctuate around 40kg in the later stage. However, the proportion of meat consumption will decline and is expected to remain around 55%.
More importantly, from 2019 to 2020, the production capacity of pigs was damaged, and the consumption of pork decreased sharply from 55 million tons in normal years to 45 million tons. The consumption gap of 10 million tons was made up by poultry, beef and mutton, and the growth trend of poultry, beef and mutton will continue in the future.
This is due to the shift of consumption habits of the younger generation, which is more inclined to beef, mutton and aquatic products. Also, China has gradually entered an aging society, and the elderly are more inclined to poultry. These realities will crowd out some pork consumption. In the medium and long term, the total consumption of pork has a downward trend.
From the changes of China’s population structure from 2016 to 2021, the number of elderly population is increasing year by year, and the degree of population aging is deepening.
Shen Yuanbing said that the elderly tend to prefer light, digestible and nutritious meat. Therefore, compared with pork, poultry and beef are more in line with the demand, and egg and milk consumption also replaces pork consumption to a large extent. According to studies outside China, the aging population will significantly affect meat consumption. Every 1% increase in the proportion of the elderly over 60 in the family will reduce the per capita meat consumption of the family by 0.5%, which will reduce the growth rate of pork consumption.
From the situation of developed countries in Europe and America, the general trend of residents’ meat consumption is also the decline of pork and the increase of poultry.
Taking Germany as an example, from the historical trend of meat consumption, the overall consumption of meat has declined and the proportion of pork has declined since 2011.
In 2011, the proportion of pork, poultry and beef in meat consumption was 63.9%, 18.5% and 14.6% respectively. Ten years later, due to the decline of per capita meat consumption demand, the output of pork decreased by 2.4% and the output of beef and poultry decreased by 1.6% in 2021. The proportions of the three kinds of meat were 56.4%, 23.8% and 17.1% respectively.
Zhu Yong said that the decrease of vid-19 was mainly affected by the short-term increase of meat consumption. In the medium and long term, it is mainly affected by the age structure of the population. From 1950 to 2020, the shape of the population pyramid in Germany changed from expanding to static, and the proportion of the population aged 65 and over increased from 9.7% to 21.9%.
He mentioned that with the increase of the proportion of China’s elderly population, it will drive the consumption demand for white meat, which means that there is still some room for growth in poultry consumption in the future. At the same time, with the rise and popularity of prefabricated dishes, fast food and other products, it will further drive the growth of poultry consumption and the steady increase of beef and mutton consumption demand.
In 2021, China’s top 20 listed pig enterprises sold 136 million pigs, accounting for 20.4% of the total number of pigs sold in China. This trend is still accelerating. This means that under the background of the limited growth space of China’s per capita pork consumption in the future, the crazy expansion of production capacity of head pig enterprises is bound to trigger a fighting game of stock production capacity. Zhu zengyong believes that when the overall demand for pork is stable, the expansion of leading enterprises will occupy the stock space of small and medium-sized retail investors, but it will also optimize the main structure of breeding, accelerate the transformation from the previous middle and lower retail investors to leading enterprises and farms above Designated Size, and the median breeding scale will gradually move upward.
