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While economists are increasingly acknowledging the importance of distributional issues, the distribution of the consumption of food items has largely been neglected. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that important insights can be obtained by analysing the distribution of consumption of food products within society.

This study was conducted by analysing food consumption in two very different countries: Romania, a middle-income country and Switzerland, one of the most prosperous countries in the world. In order to test the formulated hypotheses, consumption per capita was calculated, as a base for the calculation of the Gini coefficient of consumption for each product. A mixed effect model was applied for total food and for meat, computing the predictors for the variable “consumption distribution”.

Using the Gini coefficients of food and drink item consumption by Romanian and Swiss households, the authors tested the hypothesis that in prosperous middle-income countries the homogeneity of food consumption is growing over time as a sign of consumption democratisation, whereas in high-income countries a growing degree of individualisation is leading to decreasing homogeneity. For meat, the bifurcation of consumption patterns between vegetarians and hedonists leads to a growing Gini coefficient over time for both countries. The analysis controls for factors such as the products’ importance in the diet and their price.

The paper approaches a new subject and raises a new research question that may be relevant for structural issues of contemporary society. Both the comparative analysis of food distribution in two different societies and their dynamics is a novelty.

Per capita meat consumption in Switzerland has been rather consistent for decades, although the percentage of vegetarians has risen to 14 per cent according to a recent survey. This study tries to resolve this apparent contradiction

The study is based on household consumption data from Switzerland and focuses on the distribution of consumption rather than on average amounts, using descriptive statistics and a mixed-effects model which explains the coefficient of variation between single consumer consumption amounts.

Vegetarianism and veganism are not only overestimated through surveys but also associated with a segment of the population that is consuming increasing amounts of meat. This dual development leads to a stable per capita meat consumption.

Our results indicate that greater scientific attention should be paid to this segment of heavy meat eaters.