Although poultry consumption in Poland remains stable and high, the industry is facing a growing threat in the form of food disinformation. False or manipulated content based on emotions not only affects the sector’s image, but can also influence entire supply chains, international relations and the country’s food security. In the case of poultry, the most commonly repeated myths concern the use of growth hormones and antibiotics.
“The disinformation content that appears most often concerns the safety of consuming poultry products. These include, for example, claims about growth hormone content. In the European Union, its use in farming has been banned for decades, and no Polish producer uses it. Another example concerns antibiotics. They are used only under the supervision of a veterinarian, and no meat containing them would be allowed to reach consumers,” Marcin Wiśniewski, President of the Institute for Internet and Social Media Research, told Newseria.
As the National Poultry Council – Chamber of Commerce, which runs the #StopFoodDisinformation campaign, points out, disinformation means the deliberate or unintentional spread of false, manipulated or decontextualised information about food — its composition, origin, production methods or impact on health and the environment. It uses standard social media reach-building mechanisms based on emotional and engaging content with which users frequently interact. The National Poultry Council emphasises that creators of fake news use, among other things, sensational attention-grabbing headlines, or clickbait, selective presentation of facts, known as cherry-picking, and falsified audio and video materials, including deepfakes and cheapfakes.
“Content about production and consumer choices achieves such wide reach because it concerns our everyday lives and what matters most to us: our health and the health of our loved ones. We all know how important diet and consumer choices are for health. When we see information suggesting that something we eat every day may harm us and our loved ones, it naturally attracts our attention, emotions and fear,” Wiśniewski explains.
Business and ideological interests clash around animal production.
“We can speak of an information war, because there are many communication actors who have an interest in distorting content about poultry, the poultry industry and related consumer choices through disinformation. This is not only about strictly business or market rivalry, but also about highly ideological issues,” says the President of the Institute for Internet and Social Media Research.
According to the National Poultry Council, one disinformation campaign that received wide attention and fitted into critical narratives about the poultry industry involved publications about the so-called white striping disease in poultry meat. Materials published, among others, by pro-animal organisations on social media suggested that “white stripes” in meat were a sign of disease in animals and posed a threat to consumers. Industry representatives stress that, in reality, this refers to white striping syndrome, a muscle condition described in scientific studies that does not mean the animals are diseased and does not affect the safety of meat consumption.
Food disinformation influences how consumers choose products, and its consequences for the industry and buyers are multidimensional. They can affect entire supply chains, from breeders to exporters. As the Institute for Internet and Social Media Research emphasises, this is of great importance for a country such as Poland, which is one of the largest food exporters in the European Union. The effects of disinformation affect the entire economy, international relations and food security. Undermining trust in Polish producers — regardless of whether it is driven by a lobbyist, an activist or an entity linked to foreign intelligence — can strike at the economic and social foundations of the state.
“Disinformation affects, among other things, administrative processes in the industry, product consumption, popularity, the good image of a company and the product itself. As far as consumers are concerned, it mainly influences their choices: whether they decide to buy this type of meat, whether they decide to buy meat at all, or whether they choose the product of one brand or another,” Wiśniewski explains.
Experts stress that once false information has been spread, it remains in the minds of audiences for a long time. Corrections and explanations rarely achieve a similar reach.
Preliminary estimates by the Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics for 2025 showed a decline in per capita poultry meat consumption, but the level to which annual consumption per person fell remains high, at 30 kg.
The report “Preferences and Opinions on Meat Consumption Among Poles — Quantitative and Qualitative Study”, prepared for the Polish Meat Association, shows that poultry is the most common meat choice among consumers. It is eaten by 91 percent of respondents, most often in the form of chicken, while pork is consumed by 78 percent. Younger people eat poultry more often: 62 percent of respondents aged up to 29 and 65 percent of those aged 30–39 consume it several times a week. One in three respondents pays attention to the country of origin when buying poultry meat.
According to Marcin Wiśniewski, the scale of disinformation concerning poultry is declining slightly. Nevertheless, it still represents a significant threat that must be recognised and countered. In the expert’s view, consumers themselves, as users of social media platforms, have an important role to play.
“The decision each of us makes — whether we like a given piece of information or share it further — affects what food security in Poland will look like and what information about Polish food and Polish producers, including poultry producers, will reach consumers,” he explains.
