BERLIN – The recent acquisition of one of Germany’s largest sausage manufacturers by a Chinese meat giant illustrates the deepening crisis in the German meat sector and Beijing’s growing economic influence in the EU food industry.
The EU major fair for the food and agriculture sector, Berlin Green Week, opens this week, marking its 100th edition, but the mood in the country’s iconic sausage industry is far from celebratory. Despite being a staple of the German diet, the sector has been declining in recent years.
According to government data, Germans have reduced their per-capita meat consumption. Between 2018 and 2023, per-capita pork meat consumption declined from 34.1 to 27.5 kg per year.
Just last week, Morliny Foods Holding, the European meat processing arm of the Chinese – and world’s largest – pork company WH Group, announced it had acquired Wolf Essgenuss GmbH, one of the main traditional German sausage producers, which employs around 1,800 people.
Sausage crisis
This acquisition adds to a growing list of German meat companies either filing for bankruptcy or being taken over the past two years, according to Agrarheute. The crisis is being driven by falling sales, rising production costs, and a shortage of skilled workers, the publication reported.
But the German agriculture minister, Alois Rainer, does not want to close the door to China – quite the opposite.
Germany must “expand the markets” with third countries, in line with its agricultural export strategy, unveiled in December, he told reporters in Berlin on Thursday, ahead of the start of the Green Week.
“I will be travelling a lot in the spring of this year, in March to South Africa, and then to China,” he added.
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