I was terrified when I first saw this post that it was going to be a preachy vegetarian/vegan post (no offense intended to vegetarians/vegans - just the overly preachy ones!). You have hit the nail on the head though.

For me personally I live by 2 mantras, for me to switch to buying something else it has to be better or cheaper. Just lately we've switched to buying better quality (or should I say better sourced) meat and paying a little more - we support the local butcher who in turn supports local farms.

You only have to look at the milk industry where farmers are selling at a loss to see where the alternative leads.

For the single market, that's a tough one. I don't think we need to remain in the single market to get suitably priced meat, there will be a rough period while trade deals are formed but the likes of New Zealand and Australia sell lots in the UK already. There are some issues with American meat (I recall seeing something about bleaching chickens?)

I'd happily eat slightly less meat, or eat meat a little less often, and have it come from the UK though. It's only a couple of years ago we bought half a pig, which was reared about 200 yards away, and the price was very fair (though we got all the cuts, not just the popular ones!).

I'm not sure I've shown an opinion either way or even contributed to this post at this point but there you go. This is the sort of post I'd rant and ramble to on FaceBook for free, might as well do it here (less likely to get called names here lol).

Cheers!