Supply and consumption of meat will grow strongly over the next decade in many parts of the world, but the main features of the UK market will be segmentation and demand shifts between product and outlet sectors rather than volume expansion. This is one of the main themes in an major report on the global market by MLC's planning and forecasting team. The publication, New Horizons ­ The Global Meat Industry to 2010, includes an unusually lucid explanation by economists of the links between broad, international supply and demand trends and the practicalities of production, processing and retailing in this country. Global consumption of meat is forecast to grow 35% by 2010, boosted by a sharp rise in the number of "non-subsistence" consumers. Biggest volume increases will be in parts of the Far East and South America. But the report warns: "As economies progress, consumer demands will become increasingly diverse. "It will no longer be sufficient to produce a commodity and expect to find a ready market." This is already becoming visible in the mature UK market, where "total consumption....should increase over the 10 year period but not at as high a rate as in the last decade". "UK consumers are becoming more individualistic in their food requirements," the report points out. "This will create an increasingly segmented market with products aimed at particular market sub-sectors and priced accordingly." Structural and demand shifts are likely to take catering and processing to more than two thirds of the total UK market by the end of the decade. {{MEAT }}