One of the food consumption trends observable over the past decades in many countries, including Lithuania, is the move to a higher consumption of meat. Growth in meat consumption has significant environmental and health consequences. In order to change meat consumption, it is essential to analyze changes in meat and different types of meat consumption and identify factors affecting these changes. The aim of this research - after analyzing changes in meat consumption and identifying factors affecting these changes, to evaluate the dependence between meat consumption and main economic, social and demographic factors in Lithuania. The analysis of studies which examined changes in meat consumption in different countries and identified factors affecting these changes is presented. The changes in meat consumption in Lithuania in 1994-2011 are examined and main reasons causing these changes are determined. The strength of the relations between meat consumption and main economic, social and demographic factors is estimated in Lithuania during the period of 1994-2010. It was found that disposable income, median age, obesity rate, urbanization level, meat price index are significant factors and had the strong or medium relations with meat consumption in Lithuania. The strongest positive relation was between meat consumption and disposable income.
Key words: beef, pork, meat, poultry, consumption.
JEL code - Q110.
Eičaitė, O.; Gapšys, A. 2013. Mėsos vartojimo pokyčių ir jiems įtakos turinčių veiksnių vertinimas, Management theory and studies for rural business and infrastructure development =Vadybos mokslas ir studijos - kaimo verslų ir jų infrastruktūros plėtrai 35(1): 48-55. ISSN 1822-6760 [EBSCO host: Business source complete nuo 2006 (EBSCO sąrašas) Central & Eastern European Academic Source nuo 2006 (EBSCO sąrašas); Ulrich’s; IndexCopernicus].
