Our World
in Data
Oxford Martin School logoUniversity of Oxford logoGlobal Change Data Lab logo

Global meat demand if everyone ate like the average citizen of..., 2010 to
2022

Hypothetical global meat demand if everyone in the world ate the same quantity as the average citizen of a given country. Forexample, data for the US in 2020 shows global meat demand if everyone in the world consumed the same amount of meat asthe average US citizen in 2020. The curve for "World" gives the actual global meat production in 2020.

20102022201220142016201820200 t10 million t20 million t30 million t40 million tDemocratic Republic of Congo

Data source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024); Population based on various sources (2024) – Learn more about this data

Note: This data reflects the amount of meat available for consumption, not actual intake. It does not account for food waste at theconsumer level.

OurWorldinData.org/meat-production |

Add/remove countries and regions

Sort by
Name
Selection (1)
All countries and regions
Data

Global meat demand if everyone ate like the average citizen of...

FAO
See all data and research on:
Agricultural Production

What you should know about this indicator

  • This is a hypothetical variable derived by Our World in Data which answers the question: "What would global meat demand have to be if everyone in the world consumed the average per capita amount of a given country?". For example: "How much meat would need to be provided if everyone in the world consumed as much meat as the average UK citizen?".
  • We do not have data on actual individual consumption. Instead, this data reflects the amount of meat available for consumption. It may include food that is wasted at the consumer level and not eaten.
Global meat demand if everyone ate like the average citizen of...
FAO
Hypothetical global meat demand if everyone in the world ate the same quantity as the average citizen of a given country.
Source
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024); Population based on various sources (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 17, 2025
Next expected update
March 2026
Date range
1961–2022
Unit
tonnes

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Food Balance Sheet presents a comprehensive picture of the pattern of a country's food supply during a specified reference period.

The food balance sheet shows for each food item - i.e. each primary commodity and a number of processed commodities potentially available for human consumption - the sources of supply and its utilization. The total quantity of foodstuffs produced in a country added to the total quantity imported and adjusted to any change in stocks that may have occurred since the beginning of the reference period gives the supply available during that period. On the utilization side a distinction is made between the quantities exported, fed to livestock, used for seed, put to manufacture for food use and non-food uses, losses during storage and transportation, and food supplies available for human consumption.

The per caput supply of each such food item available for human consumption is then obtained by dividing the respective quantity by the related data on the population actually partaking of it. Data on per caput food supplies are expressed in terms of quantity and - by applying appropriate food composition factors for all primary and processed products - also in terms of caloric value and protein and fat content.

Retrieved on
March 17, 2025
Retrieved from
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBSH
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Food Balances: Food Balances (-2013, old methodology and population) (2023).

Food Balance Sheet presents a comprehensive picture of the pattern of a country's food supply during a specified reference period.

The food balance sheet shows for each food item - i.e. each primary commodity and a number of processed commodities potentially available for human consumption - the sources of supply and its utilization. The total quantity of foodstuffs produced in a country added to the total quantity imported and adjusted to any change in stocks that may have occurred since the beginning of the reference period gives the supply available during that period. On the utilization side a distinction is made between the quantities exported, fed to livestock, used for seed, put to manufacture for food use and non-food uses, losses during storage and transportation, and food supplies available for human consumption.

The per caput supply of each such food item available for human consumption is then obtained by dividing the respective quantity by the related data on the population actually partaking of it. Data on per caput food supplies are expressed in terms of quantity and - by applying appropriate food composition factors for all primary and processed products - also in terms of caloric value and protein and fat content.

Retrieved on
March 17, 2025
Retrieved from
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Food Balances: Food Balances (2010-) (2024).

Our World in Data builds and maintains a long-run dataset on population by country, region, and for the world, based on various sources.

You can find more information on these sources and how our time series is constructed on this page: https://ourworldindata.org/population-sources

Retrieved on
July 11, 2024
Retrieved from
https://ourworldindata.org/population-sources
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
The long-run data on population is based on various sources, described on this page: https://ourworldindata.org/population-sources

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
  • This indicator was calculated by multiplying global population by per capita meat supply of a given country.

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Global meat demand if everyone ate like the average citizen of...”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser (2023) - “Agricultural Production”. Data adapted from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Various sources. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hypothetical-global-meat-demand [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024); Population based on various sources (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024); Population based on various sources (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Global meat demand if everyone ate like the average citizen of... – FAO” [dataset]. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Food Balances: Food Balances (-2013, old methodology and population)”; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Food Balances: Food Balances (2010-)”; Various sources, “Population” [original data]. Retrieved April 10, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hypothetical-global-meat-demand

We use cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

By agreeing, you consent to our use of cookies and other analytics tools according to our privacy policy.