Will livestock farming on the island of Krk be destroyed by competition from the Redefine Meat Company, which produces plant-based meat-like products? No, that's not true: The Krški Pašnjaci association protested poor conditions for livestock farmers in Croatia on December 2, 2023. However, Redefine Meat was not mentioned as one of their concerns, nor were any other companies.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on December 17, 2023. It opened (translated from Croatian to English by Lead Stories staff):
THIS IS WHY LIVESTOCK BREEDING ON KRK PASTURES IS DESTROYED
Just one factory in the Netherlands produces 500 tons of laboratory 'meat' per month. The company Redefine Meat will supply German restaurants with laboratory 'meat'.
Already, over 110 German restaurants buy laboratory 'meat' from the company Redefine Meat.
Dear people, this Government is only implementing insane globalist plans and shamelessly destroying the already small livestock in our homeland.
We have to stop them from doing it or we will be gone!!!!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Jan 3 17:02:44 2023 UTC)
On November 27, 2023, the Krški Pašnjaci association published a post on its official Facebook account (archived here) in which it announced its protest against the unfavorable working and living conditions in livestock farming. Some of its complaints in the post were (as translated):
They shamelessly deprive us of European funding in contravention of the applicable regulations, they use corrupt methods, they manipulate tenders for the allocation of state land and the awarding of measures from EU funds and the payment of grants, the European funds intended for the advance have been spent for other purposes and they are deceiving us and delaying payment with unverified monitoring showing false results of land use.
Neither Redefine Meat (archived here), a company that specializes in production of plant-based meat, was mentioned, nor were any other companies.
The Ministry of Agriculture published an official statement on December 2, 2023 (archived here), rejecting the claims of the Krški Pašnjaci association and stating that "everything mentioned is completely untrue." The declaration does not mention Redefine Meat or any other company.
Redefine Meat is an Israel-based food tech startup that offers a wide range of plant-based meat-like products (archived here), including minced meat, sausages and kebabs. The products are sold (archived here) in some countries in Europe and the Middle East. However, none of these products are available in Croatia or in neighboring countries, except in Italy.
