870g meat substitutes equals 8 to 10 vega burgers or 50 vega balls. It makes the Netherlands the leader of Europe, shows Research To eleven European countries. The United Kingdom closely follows the Netherlands. Other European countries are doing very badly.
| Countries | Consumption per person | Cost per person |
| Netherlands | 868 g | 10.05 Euro |
| United Kingdom | 855 g | 7.53 Euro |
| Belgium | 314 g | 4.30 Euro |
| Germany | 309 g | 4,19 Euro |
| Austria | 226 g | 3,27 Euro |
| Spain | 164 g | 1,85 Euro |
| Italy | 144 g | 1.84 Euro |
| France | 91 g | 1,19 Euro |
| Romania | 48 g | 0.26 Euro |
| Denmark | 0.0044 g | 0.00 Euro |
| Poland | I do not know |
Note: According to the study no meat substitutes are eaten in Denmark.
‘Dutch food culture cries’
Pablo Molman, an environmental economist and co-founder of Proveck, says the popularity of meat substitutes in the Netherlands is related to Dutch food culture. “It cries out for meat substitutes. We’m used to eating potatoes, meat and vegetables. If you remove meat, you have to substitute. In other food cultures, meat plays a small role. There are more legumes that you are more likely to replace.”
Molman says it is not surprising that the Netherlands scored so well. “We know the Netherlands is one of the European leaders when it comes to meat consumption and production, but we’ve never seen where we end up in a ranking.”
The number of people who see themselves as carnivores is declining in the Netherlands. Earlier this year, a third of households indicated they wanted to eat less meat. Nevertheless, we consume an average of 39 kilograms of meat a year, which is a total of 700 million kilograms in the Netherlands.
