Genesus Global Market Report: Spain

Pork price in Spain will continue with a similar trend to 2015 fall prices, except that this year Spain will have lighter pigs going to the market.
calendar icon 13 November 2018
clock icon 3 minute read

by Mercedes Vega, General Director for Spain, Italy & Portugal [email protected]

We are currently with a market price of € 1,046 / kg liveweight with an average weight of 111 kg.

At this time the packers have stopped losing money and they have started to make decent profits, while the producers -if we take as a reference the cost of production from the first two quarters of 2018, they are losing between 1.05 or 1.1 € / kg

In addition to this situation, everybody agrees that this year there are lighter hogs compared with last year -110.98 kg compared to 113.57 kg liveweight in 2017- but also there is more supply and also more killing capacity, so the packers will be assuming that by increasing their purchase volume.

The uncertainty of the market with the future is still very confusing due to the ASF situation in the EU.

On the other hand, we must keep in mind that the meat consumption in Spain is decreasing.
There are several reasons that justify this fact:

  • First, is the repercussion of the deep financial crisis that began in 2008. This crisis has led to a drastic purchasing power decrease and therefore change of habits regarding animal protein consumption
  • Second reason is the increase and pressure exerted by groups of vegetarians, vegans and animal rights extremists
  • The third issue is the evolution of the population structure in Spain with a growing increase on aged people.
  • And the fourth reason is the change in the average family structure in Spain with a growing presence of units of one or two people and the decrease of family lunches and dinners in those families that have younger children.

All this has lead to the following consumption estimates:

Pork meat quality has played an important role on lower per-capita consumption in Spain. Spain traditionally has been an extra-lean pork country using Pietrain like pigs that had impacted, in part, the market with a poor and tasteless product that has not helped to encourage consumption.

This trend seems to be changing thanks to the increase in production with terminal lines like Duroc that gives meat a higher organoleptic quality and hopefully helps to promote consumption by getting a good "eating experience".

Summary:

Spain´s animal protein consumption is gradually approaching to the EU's average.

New Packing plant - In the last edition of SIAL in Paris was officially presented the new packing plant that is being built in Binefar (Huesca). It is an Italian investment in Spain by Pini Group. The company has announced an official opening early 2019.

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