Meat and Livestock Australia happy to address the 93%
21/05/2019
Industry marketing body Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) has said it wants to focus its communication efforts on stimulating demand for the country’s beef and lamb and on working with groups “who have legitimate concerns but want to be partners in the process”.
It says it is careful not to engage in debates that “give legitimacy to issues representative of the views of a very small group”. This is a reference to what MLA has described as “anti-meat extremism”.
In recent comments its domestic marketing manager, Graeme Yardy, said that MLA research over the last three years has consistently found that 93% of Australians eat meat regularly and that the numbers who self-identify as vegetarian or vegan remain steady at 7%. He said this is testament to the hard work of Australian meat producers and their willingness to be transparent about how they work.
“Veganism has a lot of celebrity influence,” he said. “It’s not a fad, and people are free to choose what they eat, but it has to be viewed with perspective. There’s so much media attention on veganism, alternative diets and activism. There’s an ability of small interest groups to have a huge voice compared to what Australians in general are doing with their lives.”
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