World meat industry news

Despite continuing sanctions and food embargoes, Russian agricultural companies do not reduce the pork production volume, which is growing, and actively increase their exports.

The number of pigs in Russia increased by 5.7% (by 1,251 thousand heads) during a year and amounted to 23.3 million heads by January 1, 2018.

The volume of pork production in Russia amounted to 3,348.6 thousand tons in slaughter weight (4 568.3 thousand tons in live weight) in 2017, which is 5.0% or 159.5 thousand tons more than in 2016.

There were no imports of chilled pork to Russia in 2017. Russia imported 270.7 thousand tons of frozen pork, which is by 6.1% (15.6 thousand tons) more than in 2016. Imports of pork offal increased by 26.7% (by 2.3 thousand tons) to 11.0 thousand tons. The pork fatback imports increased by 15.4% (by 2.8 thousand tons) to 20.9 thousand tons.

New Russian projects in pig production allowed Russia to increase exports, as well as to replace the outworn capacities of old enterprises and small farms. The production cost decrease also affected this process, as well as the implementation of new advanced technologies concerning animal feeding and the genetic qualities improvement. Thus, despite the periodic African swine fever (ASF) outbreaks, exports of pork, pork offal and pork fatback from Russia increased from 42,800 tons in 2016 to 63,900 tons in 2017, i.е. by 1,5 times. Hong Kong accounted for 56.9% of total pork exports from Russia.

According to Information-Analytical Agency EMEAT, exports of chilled pork from Russia amounted to 13.9 thousand tons in 2017, which is twice more than in 2016. Frozen pork exports amounted to 6,6 thousand tons, which is 2,1 times more than in 2016. Export of pork offal increased 1.3 times to 42.7 thousand tons, pork fatback exports amounted to 0.7 thousand tons, which is 55.3% more than in 2016.

Russia managed to strengthen its position in the markets of Hong Kong (+11.7 thousand tons, + 48%), Ukraine (+8.2 thousand tons, + 73%), Japan (+1.5 thousand tons, +513 %), China (+0.5 thousand tons, + 730%) and North Korea (+0.2 thousand tons, + 591%), while pork exports to Vietnam decreased by 11% (0.6 thousand tons).

As reported by EMEAT