Hungary aims for 12% pork consumption increase
“The per capita consumption of pork in Hungary should increase by 3kg within the following year, and we are launching a campaign to promote pork consumption,” Fazekas was quoted in a statement released by the ministry. The announcement was made on 11 December at a press conference held in the country’s capital Budapest.
According to data released by the Ministry of Rural Development, an average Hungarian consumes some 25kg of pork per annum.
The per capita consumption was three times higher during the 1990s, the statement said. In comparison, in neighbouring Czech Republic pork consumption was considerably higher, at 41.3kg per capita in 2012, according to figures from the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ).
With the aim of increasing pork consumption in Hungary, the ministry has drafted a Pork Strategy, and said the implementation of its recommendations had already begun.
In a bid to improve the situation for Hungarian pork producers, the strategy aims to enable an “improvement of genetic stocks and to make it easier for goods to reach the market”, according to the minister. It also includes a number of measures that are expected to contribute to the development of a Quality Hungarian Pork trademark, designed to increase the market visibility of locally-made pork products, the ministry said. Another objective of the strategy is to increase the share of domestic production in the country’s pork consumption.
Local news agency MTI reported that the ministry planned to spend some HUF230m (US$1.05m) on the planned promotional campaign over a period of six months
By 2022, should the Pork Strategy be successful, the ministry expects Hungary could double its current pig population, which is estimated at about 3m head, Fazekas said.
