The European Animal-Derived Gelatine Supply System: Production, Trade, Availability and Links to Food Gel-Based Applications

Gelatine is an established animal-derived gel-forming protein, but the European industrial context supporting its availability remains poorly quantified. Eurostat production, trade and Structural Business Statistics were integrated to characterise the EU-27 gelatine supply system during 2014–2024, with a separate 2025 trade update. Nominal sold-production value increased from EUR 1.021 to EUR 1.285 billion, whereas sold-production quantity showed no statistically significant linear trend. Apparent physical availability was approximately 167 kt in 2024 (rounding-base bounds: 137–197 kt), compared with 125.60 kt in 2014. Its positive trend over 2014–2024 (+1.79%/year, p = 0.029) was not statistically significant when restricted to 2017–2024 (+2.30%/year, p = 0.070), following the PRODCOM product-definition change. Extra-EU imports value more than doubled in nominal terms, accompanied by a 69.7% increase in imported quantity, while the normalised external trade balance declined from +0.471 to +0.221. In 2024, the five largest disclosed producers accounted for at least 75.4% of official EU-27 production value. In 2023, gelatine import value co-scaled with food-manufacturing turnover across Member States (Spearman ρ = 0.828; log–log β = 0.976, 95% CI 0.807–1.144), although this adjusted association may reflect overall country size. Within-country fixed-effects models showed no significant short-term association. A targeted 2020–2026 evidence map identified 35 experimental studies addressing packaging/coatings/preservation (n = 11), 3D printing/digital food (n = 9), emulsion/lipid structuring (n = 8), confectionery/gummies (n = 3), ingredient/source functionality (n = 2), dairy/yoghurt (n = 1) and meat/low-fat products (n = 1). These findings illustrate the diversity of contemporary experimental applications rather than their commercial prevalence or industrial gelatine consumption. After excluding two source-functionality studies, a research-weighted scenario allocated 2024 apparent availability across packaging/preservation (38.1%; 63.5 kt), emulsion/lipid structuring and 3D printing (19.0%; 31.7 kt each), confectionery (14.3%; 23.8 kt) and dairy and meat applications (4.8%; 7.9 kt each). These quantities are illustrative research-weighted equivalents, not observed market shares or consumption.