Meat consumption and production – analysis of efficiency, sufficiency and consistency of global trends

•A novel approach for the integration of different dimensions of sustainability.•A global and continental perspective on the trends of food sustainability.•The convergence analysis of consumption of meat products on a global level.

The sustainability challenges that the food system is facing are ever increasing. The traditional approach to monitoring these changes considers economic, societal and environmental sustainability. A strong case has been made, however, that a fourth dimension, ethical, should also be considered. Conventionally, two main strategies have been used to assess the improvements in sustainability: efficiency and sufficiency. Efficiency is usually linked with technological improvements, and sufficiency is connected with a reduction in production or consumption. We introduce a third strategy to the analysis; namely consistency that is related mainly to the ethical dimension of sustainability. Trends of the indicators related to the three strategies are calculated on both a global and regional scale from 1962 to 2009. Efficiency (measured as land requirement for animal products) has increased by about 13 percent globally, sufficiency (measured as the amount of meat consumed) has declined by 91 percent and consistency (measured as the number of animals slaughtered) has declined by 264 percent. In addition, convergence analysis emphasizes that industrialized and developing countries are moving towards similar patterns of animal products consumption. Such results suggest that measures should be taken to develop a food system that is not only efficient, but also ethically just.