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In 2025, 124,900 tonnes of vegetarian and vegan meat alternatives were produced in Germany. This represents a decline of 1.2% compared with the previous year’s 126,500 tonnes. According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the production value also fell by 2.2% to €632.6 million, down from €647.1 million in 2024.
This marks the first slight downturn for the industry after several years of continuous growth. In the long term, however, the trend remains clearly positive: compared with 2019, the production volume of meat substitute products in Germany has more than doubled. Six years ago, output stood at just 60,400 tonnes.
Compared with conventional meat production, however, the market for meat alternatives remains considerably smaller. In 2025, meat and meat products worth around €45.2 billion were produced in Germany — an increase of 2.0% year-on-year. This means the production value of meat was more than 70 times higher than that of meat alternatives. In 2019, the ratio had still been around 150 to 1.
At the same time, meat consumption in Germany has also risen slightly again recently. According to preliminary figures from the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE), per capita meat consumption in 2025 averaged 54.9 kilograms. In 2023 and 2024, the figure had stood at 52.9 and 53.5 kilograms per person respectively.
Source: Nach jahrelangem Anstieg: Fleischersatz-Produktion sinkt 2025 um 1,2 % gegenüber dem Vorjahr - Statistisches Bundesamt (German Federal Statistical Office, only published in German language), 18.05.2026.
