Cattle slaughter in the European Union (EU) was down slightly in 2022 compared to the previous year, reports Leatherbiz.

Recently updated figures give a total cattle slaughter across the 27 member states of just under 22.7 million head last year. This represents a decline of 1.6% compared to the figures for 2021.

As in previous years, France’s total was by far the largest, with around 4.25 million head for the year. This means a fall of 4.4% year on year. Germany’s total was just under 3 million head, but the fall there was steeper at 8.4%. Poland also registered a decline, of 4.1%, to reach almost 1.8 million head.

However, a number of other important EU cattle-raising states registered increases. These include Spain, which recorded slaughter of 2.6 million head, an increase of 2%, and Italy, which had almost 2.8 million head of cattle go to slaughter last year, an increase of 0.8%. Similarly, cattle slaughter increased in the Netherlands to 2.1 million head, up by 0.7%.

There was a larger increase in Ireland, where slaughter was 1.9 million head, an increase of 6.6%.