Meat and deli meats

Industry

The meat industry is the main agri-food sector in Catalonia, with a turnover exceeding €10,000M.

It represents more than 35% of the agri-food sector's turnover, 36% of employment and more than 16% of the number of companies. 

It is a sector increasingly oriented towards vertical integration as a way to ensure traceability from farm to point of sale, while meeting growing market demands.

Production

Catalonia produces more than two and a half million tonnes of meat annually, across all species: pork, beef, sheep, goat, horse, poultry and rabbit. 

Catalonia has established itself as one of the most important production centres on the European continent, ranking as the 2nd producer in Europe and the 10th pork producer in the world. It is also the main region for pig, cattle and poultry farming in Spain, and internationalisation is a key element for marketing its products.

Exports

Catalonia is a major exporter of meat. Catalonia exports more than 43%, both in volume and in value, of the total meat exported by Spain and nearly 6%, in both volume and value, of the European Union. 

These figures attest to the sector's remarkable professionalisation, which has achieved very high standards of animal welfare, animal health, production quality and efficiency, all of which are praised worldwide.

In fact, nearly 75% of the meat produced here is sold on foreign markets, which represents a value of over €5,000M, taking processed meat products into account, and a coverage ratio of nearly 800%. Exports of meat and meat products to third countries have doubled in value over the past 10 years. Pork accounts for more than 60% of both the volume and value of meat exports. 

At the same time, Catalonia has a long-standing tradition in the production of cured meats of high quality and great variety, which account for more than 5% of total exports in volume and more than 10% in value. 

The main markets to which Catalonia exports meat and cured meats are France (17% of value), Italy (10%), China (10%), Japan (7%), Portugal (4%) and Poland (4%).