World meat industry news

The Belarusian market is one of the main destinations for the export of Russian pork.

Director General of the National Union of Pig Breeders Yuri Kovalev described the main trends in the industry at the III annual conference "Livestock & Feed Production", which was recently held in Moscow.

According to the NSS, the growth in pork production continued in the first half of 2023, “albeit at a slightly slower pace, not 7%, but 5.4%,” Yury Kovalev said.

The head of the Union stressed that today export is a very important direction for the industry. And if, according to the results of last year, pork supplies to foreign markets fell by 10%, then in the first half of 2023, “exports grow by about 35-40%, the data may still be slightly corrected.” As for exports to Belarus, the last year's trend has been fixed, there is no fall, and there is even an increase, he noted.

The Belarusian market is one of the leading destinations for the export of Russian pork: in 2022, supplies increased by almost 2.5 times, taking up almost the entire volume of imports. And in general, “the EAEU countries are now one of the main export channels for us,” Yuri Kovalev emphasized.

“Deliveries to Vietnam have practically recovered, which allows us to hope that with export this year we will again reach the figures of 200-220 thousand tons, and this is a very big help to unload the domestic market.”

Pork prices continue to decline. In the first half of the year, prices fell by another 5%, and for the industry this is a “satisfactory result, given that there is such an increase in production,” the head of the NSS believes. The difference in the cost of poultry and pork continues to shrink, over the past month prices have almost equalized. “We are approaching the situation that is observed in all countries with developed animal husbandry - the price of poultry meat and red pork meat will not differ much, the difference will be about 10-15%,” says Yuri Kovalev.

If we talk about priority prospects, then the goal remains the same - opening the market of China and the Philippines for Russian pork. And even if it is possible to occupy only 5–10% of this market, this will significantly increase the volume of deliveries and become the leader in pork exports. “The main task for further business development is to enter the top 5 global pork exporters. Today we are among the top ten exporters, we are approximately in the eighth position,” said the Director General of the NSS.