World meat industry news

The situation on the European pig slaughter market goes on being balanced.The quotations, for the most part, remain on the level achieved. So does the leading quotation in Germany. In Denmark as well as in Belgium the prices remain unchanged as well.

The drifting down of prices could also be stopped in the Netherlands, where last week’s quotation had still been corrected downward. Yet, the Netherlands are ranking last at a great distance within the pricing structure of the five EU member countries most significant in pig keeping. So, the gap between the German and Dutch corrected price levels is 12 cents, thus being extraordinarily large. As a rule, the Dutch slaughter companies are looking out for not allowing this gap to grow too large in order to prevent increased movement of pigs for slaughter into Germany.

Spain and France both showed a trend for steady quotations. The price situation got improved by plus 2 cents in Austria. Subsequent to the carnival season, demand is weak according to the Austrian VLV. But the quantities of live pigs on offer are going down, so the slaughter companies are struggling for charging the slaughter lines to capacity.

Trend for the German market:

The situation is expected to remain well-balanced on the pigs-mature-for-slaughter market over the next days and not to change much. Demand seems to go up after the carnival season, and the quantities of pigs mature for slaughter might be regressive in view of the new onset of winter. With the market sentiment remaining friendly, the prices are expected to remain steady altogether.