Could red meat be the next ‘sin tax’ target after alcohol, tobacco and sugar?

Meat could be a target for higher taxes given criticism of the industry’s role in climate change, deforestation and animal cruelty, according to a new report.

The idea is still its infancy and faces a lot of opposition from farming groups, but it is emerging as a trend in western Europe, said the report from research group Fitch Solutions Macro Research. If taxes gain traction, it could encourage more people to switch to poultry or plant-based protein and help drive the popularity of meat substitutes.

“The global rise of sugar taxes makes it easy to envisage a similar wave of regulatory measures targeting the meat industry,” the report said. However, “it is highly unlikely that a tax would be implemented any time soon in the United States or Brazil”.

In Germany, some politicians have proposed raising the sales tax on meat products to fund better livestock living conditions. A poll for the Funke media group showed a majority of Germans, or 56.4 per cent, backed the measure, with more than one-third calling it “very positive” and some 82 per cent of voters for the environmentalist Greens in favour. Similar proposals have been introduced in Denmark and Sweden since 2016, Fitch Solutions said.

Goldsmiths, University of London, announced on Monday that it will stop selling beef on campus as part of a push to combat climate change. The decision was met with opposition from Britain’s National Farmers Union, which said it was “overly simplistic’’ to single out one food product as a response to global warming.