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I'm the US at least, animal agriculture is heavily subsidized, so consumers don't see what it actually costs. Supply/demand economics everyone learned in school rarely applies amidst the chicanery rampant everywhere.
I came to say something similar. It's been heavily subsidized for a very long time too. Like, near a hundred years long time.
Compared to the massive increase of meat consumption in the population-dense developing world & other major influences on price such as improvements in the efficiency of meat production, the impact of the veg-movement is nigh negligible.
The price impact is rather on the side of restaurants & grocery chains in their logistics, now requiring a more diverse offering to be able to serve both the traditional clientele and veg-customers. Spreading the same demand over a larger range of products leads to a lower per-item throughput. Hence slightly lower efficiency, more waste & more overhead, which leads to marginally increased food prices overall in western countries.
Meat production currently increases by about 2-6% per year globally, while plant-based meat alternatives are growing 9-12% per year, though still much smaller in absolute terms for now. If meat alternatives keep dropping in price as production scales and supply chains mature, it might soon have an advantage, especially in emerging markets.
Store brand meat alternatives have already reached the price of their "real" meat counterparts here in Germany in 2025. Some are even a bit cheaper. It will be interesting to see the medium to long term impact of this on the meat market.
If a lot of people suddenly stopped consuming anything there would be a drop in price. The producers don't have time to adapt.
One person per day for a year stopping consuming something will make no difference.
A large percent of the population consuming less may make it more expensive.
When it comes to agriculture it's harder to predict. Not all land is suitable for soy beans and not all land is suitable for cattle.
If a lot of people suddenly stopped consuming anything there would be a drop in price. The producers don't have time to adapt.
This is generally correct, but with a somewhat-rare caveat. If the product was priced as the sum of variable costs (eg unit cost of fuel to yield 1 kWh of electricity) and of fixed costs (eg price to build a power generating station that will last for 20 years), then a reduction in consumption can actually cause an increase in per-unit costs for the remaining consumers.
This is precisely what is playing out in California with the incumbent electricity provider, PG&E. For arcane reasons, their regulated monopoly allows them to undertake large-scale construction projects, with a guaranteed rate of return (aka fixed cost) passed onto consumers. But since solar installations have smashed even the most optimistic expectations, demand for fossil fuels generation is slowing. But because a power plant running at 50% output still needs to pay off 100% of its loan payments, PG&E is using the situation to try to hike consumer rates even more. You know, to pay for those large projects that PG&E owns...
At the end of the day, non-solar consumers are being asked to shoulder more of the burden despite falling electricity demand (pre AI), but it's not caused by solar early-adopters, but due to PG&E's own greed and desire for guaranteed profit.
TL;DR: prices will usually go down when consumption goes down, unless a monopoly is trying to save their own skin. PG&E should be dissolved.
Man are PGE not the good guys…
When taken to extreme, the pieces could also rise.
Imagine that meat demand drops gradually over a few decades, and meat production adapts to it. As a result, the whole industry begins to lose the economies of scale. After a century of this kind of development, meat is produced by a handful of small farms, where the operational costs per mass unit of meat produced are very high. If that ever happens, meat would become a special ingredient most people don’t want. Those few who still do want it, are willing to pay absurd prices for it.
That’s exactly what has already happened with physical media for audio and video.
Well it's certainly lowered my grocery budget.
Absolutely no impact at all.
Should lower the price of meat with fewer customers for it.
.. it hasn't lowered the customer numbers an iota.
Okay, you're so suspiciously insistent that I decided to look into it. Looks like meat consumption has dropped 10% in the US and 19% percent in Europe since 2010. Not necessarily attributable to vegetarians/vegans, but that's a hell of a lot more than an iota: https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/12/16/meat-consumption-grows-in-us-and-asia-while-europe-is-on-the-decline/
According to that site meat consumption in Europe has dropped by 19% but grown by 10% in the US.
Impact on price: probably negligible.
Impact on production: the average amount of meat that 1 person eats x the number of people choosing alternatives, over a period of time.
production isn't determined by consumption
How would it not be? Every industry creates product to meet demand. They aren't going to produce more or less just for fun.
industry creates it's own demand
edit: my stalker has returned. I will just point out I've provided as much evidence for my position as anyone else
please provide an up to date study that demonstrates this, thank you. edit: posting nonsense and getting called out isn't stalking, you goof.
Not a sausage.
I'd imagine this would be neigh on impossible to measure, but one can generalize some basics. COVID caused massive drops in transportation, so gas prices went down due to less demand.
A truly drastic drop in demand for meat would cause prices to drop. Eventually, some producers would probably stop producing. So eventually, less would be produced. However, a drop in price will increase usage among those who were sensitive to the price, which would limit the reduction in production.
What about horse meat?
The main issue is that while a subset of the West are giving up meat, the consumption of meat is increasing in developing countries which is a typical trend as countries get richer. Also, there is a subset of Westerners increasing their meat consumption massively because of idiotic social media trends, but hopefully that is temporary.
I'm hoping that plant-based meat and/or cell-based meat eventually match or exceed meat in quality and price, but we are not quite there yet. Not that I'd eat anything that smells or tastes like meat personally, but people seem to be addicted to it.
It probably varies by area. If a significant enough portion stops eating meat, it may drive down demand. That could drive down price, result in a one-time sale to lower old stock (if sudden) and then back to status quo, or have no impact at all (this more depends on the source and distribution network I think)
this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2026
64 points (100.0% liked)
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