While per capita consumption was still around 107 liters in the 2019/20 financial year, it fell by 3.5 liters to 103.6 liters in the period from July 2020 to June 2021, according to a survey by Statistics Austria. The reason for the drop in beer consumption is likely to have been the closures of restaurants and bars due to the corona pandemic.
On the other hand, there was a sharp increase in the per capita consumption of potatoes, which rose to its highest level since 1995 (by 3.7 kilos to 61 kilos). At the same time, local farmers also grew more potatoes. At 886,000 tons, the potato harvest was 18 percent higher than in the 2019/20 marketing year. There was also a significant increase in fruit production, which rose by 21 percent to 481,000 tons. By contrast, the harvest of oilseeds declined (minus 5 percent).
The domestic demand for food and feed as well as for industrial processing could not be covered. Therefore, among other things, grain (3 million tons), fruit (743,000 tons), vegetable oil (450,000 tons) and potatoes (981,000 tons) were imported. Only the local wine was enough, according to Statistics Austria, the demand could be covered 100 percent. It was 94 percent for cereals, 90 percent for potatoes, 48 percent for fruit and only 25 percent for vegetable oils.
Source: Nachrichten
