Does a single person going vegan affect the supply of animal products? Explanation inside.
**Yes (in expectancy)!**
Having had many discussion with people on the topic of veganism, this often comes up. It’s simple on the face of it, but can get complicated when you dive into the details. In this post I intend to provide a detailed explanation of how it works, as well as answering any potential follow-up questions.
The goal of this post is three-fold. One is to put together all this information in a clear and concise manner in one place, for my own sake. The second is to gather feedback on how I can better explain the concepts. The third is to share this information, among both the vegan and non-vegans on this sub. That way next time a person brings up this counterpoint, you’ll be able to provide a rebuttal.
Please provide feedback! If something doesn’t make sense, let me know. If I’ve worded an idea poorly, let me know. If there’s a potential question I have not answered, let me know. Even if there’s a grammatical error (there will be), let me know. I will update the post as I get feedback.
Table of Contents
1. Basic Explanation 2. Hypothetical Example 3. Why should one care about expected impact? 4. The animals I purchase are already dead. How is not purchasing it going to turn it back into a living animal? 5. Wouldn’t you need a large number of people to vegan to make a difference? 6. The industry wastes so much, aren’t I just purchasing what would have been wasted? 7. Even if I don’t buy animal products, and even if the grocery store I purchase from reduces their orders, won’t the industry just sell the products to someone else?
**1. Basic Explanation**
A single person going vegan, or even reducing their purchases of animal products does make a difference in expectancy. In expectancy means that the impact is based on chance.
For example, let’s take a grocery store ordering chicken. On a periodic basis the grocery store will make orders to their chicken distributor. The size of the orders to their chicken distributor are heavily based on past sales of chickens. There must be some threshold, at which point the grocery store will modify their future orders to the distributor. It is unknowable to the consumer how close the grocery store already is to that threshold. Anytime an individual makes a purchase there is a chance that their purchase is the one to cross the threshold, thus reducing the amount of chicken ordered.
This same process occurs at every level of the supply chain, all the way up to the farm. When a farm realizes they cannot profitably sell as much chicken as they used to, they will begin to breed and slaughter fewer chickens.
**2. Hypothetical Example**
Let’s add some numbers to this hypothetical grocery store. The grocery buys chickens from their distributor weekly in cases, of let’s say 100lbs per case. For example, if the grocery store thinks they will sell 403lbs of chicken for the week, they will have to buy 5 cases or 500lbs.
Let’s say a person decides to go vegan. They usually would buy 5lbs of chicken per week, but now they no longer do. Instead of selling 403lbs of chicken a week, the grocery store only expects to sell only 398lbs of chicken a week. Now instead of ordering 5 cases or 500lbs, the grocery store will only order 4 cases or 400lbs.
For the more math inclined, let’s write a formula for the expected impact.
Expected Impact = Probability of Impact \* Impact
= (pounds of chicken purchased / case size) \* (case size)
= pounds of chicken purchased
**3. Why should one care about expected impact?**
The impact one has by not purchasing animal products is one in expectancy. There is an element of chance involved. Should a person care about their expected impact, the same as they would care about their direct impact?
Generally in morality, fairness is an important concept. Act in a manner you expect others to act. This is very similar to the Golden Rule, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. If everyone ignores the expected impact of their decisions, given a problem of large enough scale, which animal agriculture is, the impact on the world is roughly equal to the summed expected impact of each individual. To prevent the negative impact on the world, we would expect large groups of other people to not contribute to it, but given the principle of fairness that means we ourselves should not contribute to it.
**4. The animals I purchase are already dead. How is not purchasing it going to turn it back into a living animal?**
This is true, the animals we purchase cannot be helped, they have already suffered and are dead. However, when one purchases a dead animal, they are sending a signal all the way up the chain telling farms to produce more dead animals. The animals one purchases cannot be helped, but by not purchasing it, it can prevent another animal from being bred and slaughtered. Or in other words, supply is based on demand.
**5. Wouldn’t you need a large number of people to vegan to make a difference?**
Even if there were no vegans or vegetarians in the world, a single choice to not purchase meat on a given day could make a difference.
As discussed earlier, there is some threshold at which the hypothetical grocery store will change their order to the distributor. Even if there are no vegans or vegetarians in the world, they may already be very close to this threshold.
For example, let’s say there’s a hypothetical small town where the population is 167 people, each eat 3lbs of chicken a week. The grocery store for the small town purchases 6 cases or 600lbs, to account for the demand of 501lbs of chicken. If a single person reduces their consumption by 1lb per week, the demand of the small town will change to 500lbs, allowing them to buy just 5 cases or 500lbs.
**6. The industry wastes so much, aren’t I just purchasing what would have been wasted?**
Lot’s of animal products are wasted by the animal agriculture industry and by grocery stores. However, our purchases still make a difference in how much is produced.
Let’s continue with the grocery store example. The grocery store may buy more chickens than they expect to sell because they don’t want to risk their shelves being empty. Let’s say the grocery store expects to sell 455lbs the following week, and they purchase 10% extra, just in case. This results in an intended purchase of 500.5lbs from their distributor, but since they have to order in cases of 100lbs, they actually order 600lbs.
If you go vegan and don’t purchase chicken that week, than maybe their expected sales drop the following week. Instead of expected to sell 455lbs the next week, they only expect to sell 450lbs. Now the intended purchase from the distributor is 495lbs, but since they have to order in cases of 100lbs, they actually order 500lbs.
As can be seen in the example, the grocery store wastes plenty of chicken both before and after a person goes vegan. However, the amount of chicken the grocery store orders from their distributor is impacted by the purchases of an individual.
**7. Even if I don’t buy animal products, and even if the grocery store I purchase from reduces their orders, won’t the industry just sell the products to someone else?**
The animal agriculture industry is comprised of businesses that are trying to maximize their profits. If there was someone else they could profitably sell their products to, they would already be selling to them.
If your grocery store ends up ordering less meat from their distributor, the distributor may end up selling that meat elsewhere at a slight loss. However, they don’t want to continuously lose money, so in the future they will order less from the farms supplying them. And then the same thing happens at the farms. The may temporarily take a slight loss, and then the farm will breed and slaughter fewer animals in the future.