Consumer Behaviour in the Meat Consumption - Current Situation and Prediction until 2027

Nutrition and food policy are part of the economic policy of every developed country and are understood as complex educational, economic, legislative, and technical measures aimed at achieving the required level of food consumption.The basic model of recommended food consumption allowances in kg per inhabitant per year has been valid in Slovakia since 2000 and is based on recommended nutritional allowances.The paper aims to evaluate the consumer behaviour and level of consumption of selected types of food, compare it with the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), and predict consumption until 2027.In the analysis, we realise that consumers decide rationally or irrationally when making their decisions.Based on this, we focused on individual types of meat, namely pork, poultry, beef, veal, and fish.We drew secondary data on food consumption in 2017-2022 from the publications of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic.We calculated the prediction of food consumption in the years 2023 -2027 using the Exponential Smoothing (ETS) algorithm.Predicted values are a continuation of historical values at the specified target date.Furthermore, analysis, synthesis, comparison and trend function methods were used.When comparing the actual consumption with the recommended consumption of individual food in 2022, we found excessive pork consumption (16.8 kg more than RDA) and poultry meat (9.5 kg more than ODSP).Recommended daily allowances do not reach beef and veal (11.4 kg less than RDA) and fish meat (0.3 kg less than RDA).The prediction of the future level of consumption assumes an increase in the average annual consumption of all types of meat, namely pork to the level of 44.3 kg, poultry to 27.1 kg, beef and veal to 7.0 kg, and fish to 6.2 kg.The above implies the need to reduce the level of consumption of pork and poultry and increase the level of consumption of beef and veal.When buying meat, the average consumer decides primarily rationally, based on price or shorter time required for preparation, and irrationally, considering the tradition or habits.Educated consumers, especially, buy more rationally and try to direct their consumption towards the required level of consumption of the given food group.