The oppressive market power of the four large retail groups in Austria, SPAR, REWE, HOFER & LIDL, which together determine almost 90 percent of the food supply, has far-reaching negative effects – not only for consumers, but also for farmers, animals and the environment . Because what ends up on the shelf is decided by corporations primarily based on their profit interests.
This finding is also underlined by the current check on supermarket chains’ own-brand meat, which was recently carried out and published by Tierschutz Austria. According to this, not a single product in the own brand range would be for animal welfare, i.e. it would exceed the already quite low legal standards. And the import share is likely to have increased significantly again.
Because half of all inspected meat products do not have the AMA seal of quality and are therefore not guaranteed to come from Austria. “The high values for processed meat are particularly worrying, as in extreme cases only the slaughtering and packaging takes place in Austria, while the animals can come from abroadsays Martin Aschauer, spokesman for the organization Tierschutz Austria.
