Quite contrary to the current weather conditions, the mood is rather frosty on the EU pigs-mature-for-slaughter markets these days. On the part of the slaughter companies, demand is very restrained for pigs for slaughter with the quantities on offer being scarce

Complaint is heard from almost all over Europe about a weak meat trade. In the Netherlands and Denmark of all countries, both depending strongly on exports, this already caused a 3 cents’ price decrease last week. While the prices remained unchanged in Denmark this week, the Dutch quotation went down by another 2 cents.

Price pressure was also exerted on the payment prices in Germany (by Vion and Toennies to the fore); so, a price decrease by 3 cents was pushed through. It was stated that this was due to the meat sales being weaker currently because of the holiday season. This price decrease observed in Germany is particularly noteworthy because the number of slaughters has gone down to below 900 000 animals, thus being considerably lower than last year.

Southern Europe so far has not been caught by the weakening prices. Increased demand is generated by the holidaymakers in Italy and in Spain. By this, the weak export business is compensated for in part.

Trend for the German market:

The quantities on offer remain low even after the price decrease. Panic selling is hardly reported on, else than is usually observed in the case of price decreases. With the hot temperatures still going further up, it might occur that only few pigs are registered for sale in the marketers’ books. Therefore, the hope remains that the price will at least stabilise on the current level although this is far too low.

(Source: ISN – Interessengemeinschaft der Schweinehalter Deutschlands)

1) corrected quotation: The official Quotations of the different countries are corrected, so that each quotation has the same base (conditions).

2) These quotations are based on the correction formulas applied since 01.08.2010.

base: 57 % lean-meat-percentage; farm-gate-price; 79 % killing-out-percentage, without value-added-tax

Source: www.thepigsite.com