World meat industry news

It is a catastrophic situation on the European pig slaughter market this week.Last Wednesday, Germany triggered a price drop.

Since Germany decreased the prices, most of the slaughter companies have been undermining the market by offering even lower discounted prices.

Europe is coming apart at the seams. Many quotations have already gone down, giving in to the pressure from Germany.

The Dutch quotation responded to the development in Germany by quoting a corrected minus 8.6 cents. Thus, the Dutch quotation falls far below the VEZG quotation’s decrease.

The Belgian and Austrian price decreases were at a corrected 3.7 and 2 cents respectively.

The market participants from the other neighbouring countries are stunned about how things are developing in Germany.

Criticism is voiced everywhere. The pricing structure is put at risk, they say. Until the German moment of truth, everything was okay in Austria. But then, the quotation had to be corrected due to the uncertainty caused.

Slightly increasing prices are reported from the southern countries, Spain and France. The French price increase, however, must be attributed to increasing payout prices called by some French supermarket chains that cooperate with slaughter companies.

The payout prices aim at achieving a price level which would be acceptable to the producers. Other slaughter companies are then forced to follow. Thus, the French quotation is going up regardless of the pan-European situation.

Trend for the German market: Uncertainty is widespread. The pig feeders’ readiness to sell resulting from that is well noticed. Through it, the pressure is increasing. A further price decrease can hardly be countered.