Six out of 10 bargain meat offers at supermarkets Jumbo and Lidl carried no animal welfare label ‘pushing customers hard towards buying into the worst animal suffering’, animal welfare organisation Wakker Dier said in its 2020 supermarket evaluation.

Jumbo and Lidl lead the organisation’s list of cheap meat (kiloknallers) sellers, with label-free pork and chicken accounting for 64% and 62.5% of their supply.

The average for all supermarkets is some 51%, the same as in 2019. That means the downward trend of the last six years has stalled, Wakker Dier said. ‘It looks as if Lidl and Jumbo have the other supermarkets locked in a cheap meat stranglehold,’ spokeswoman Anne Hilhorst said.

Supermarket Plus ended at the bottom of the list with 37% label-free meat. This is proof, Hilhorst said, that supermarkets don’t need to entice customers with cheap deals.

Hilhorst said meat consumption will not disappear but that habits must change. Consumers should eat less meat and better produced meat, and offering consumers the worst kind of meat cheaply will only continue animal suffering, she said.