UK/EU Pig Statistics - October 2009

This article provides a summary of the latest statistics relating to pigs in the UK and Europe by ThePigSite editor, Jackie Linden.

10 November 2009

5 minute read

The data are updated approximately quarterly by the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and include slaughter figures for all EU countries as well as details of UK carcass weights, pig meat production and trade.

The latest data in the current quarterly report from DEFRA provides figures for the UK for September 2009 and for June 2009 for the EU.

UK/EU Slaughterings

UK slaughterings of clean pigs in September 2009 was 737,100 – up 12,700 from the same month in 2008.

UK slaughterings for sows and boars in September 2009 was 17,400, down slightly from 17,900 inthe same month a year previously.

The latest month for which data is available for EU pig slaughterings is June 2009, when the total for all 27 Member States came to 19.573 million. This brought the total number of pigs slaughtered in the EU-27 for the first half of the year to just under 118.4 million.

Total pigs slaughtered in the EU (thousand head)
Country	2008 total	Jan 2009	Feb 2009	Mar 2009	Apr 2009	May 2009	Jun 2009
Belgium	11,157	943	867	969	907	853	955
Bulgaria	993	36	37	45	53	47	48
Czech Republic	3,804	274	259	293	280	266	277
Denmark	20,790	1,855	1,548	1,702	1,491	1,452	1,547
Germany	54,848	4,816	4,335	4,935	4,589	4,479	4,555
Estonia	496	33	34	36	35	31	31
Ireland	2,578	214	188	209	203	184	197
Greece	1,913	183	144	125	129	125	133
Spain	41,306	3,570	3,488	3,385	3,019	3,136	3,146
France	25,735	2,169	1,968	2,142	2,064	1,888	2,116
Italy	13,616	1,099	1,019	1,075	1,038	1,016	1,034
Cyprus	725	59	58	49	57	62	62
Latvia	524	29	30	30	32	28	27
Lithuania	937	55	46	43	40	32	36
Luxembourg	150	11	9	12	12	11	12
Hungary	4,994	332	328	379	358	340	339
Malta	102	7	7	8	8	7	7
Netherlands	14,505	1,157	1,047	1,166	1,094	1,063	1,073
Austria	5,553	462	422	505	468	427	452
Poland	22,321	1,445	1,393	1,555	1,499	1,566	1,572
Portugal	5,976	459	433	469	486	443	476
Romania	5,660	163	182	215	270	237	221
Slovenia	381	25	23	27	24	24	24
Slovakia	1,084	62	62	68	57	61	61
Finland	2,459	192	193	210	188	184	204
Sweden	3,073	254	246	266	248	235	244
United Kingdom	9,427	835	690	717	854	690	723
EU-27	255,107	20,739	19,055	20,634	19,504	18,884	19,573

UK Carcass Weights

The average UK-killed and dressed carcass weight in September 2009 was 79.2 kg, 2.6 kg heavier than the 2008 average.

The average dressed carcass weight for UK-killed sows and boars was 152.2 kg, somewhat more than the 151.3 kg average for 2008.

UK Pig Meat Production

Total pig meat production in the UK in September 2009 was 61,000 tonnes, of which 52,000 tonnes was pork and 9,000 tonnes was bacon and ham.

These figures bring the totals for the year to the end of September to 551,000, 464,000 and 87,000 tonnes, respectively.

UK Home-Cured Bacon and Ham Production

For the third quarter of 2009, total home-cured ham and bacon production amounted to 46,000 tonnes. Of this, 25,000 tonnes (54 per cent) was produced from pigs slaughtered in the UK, and the rest from imported pig meat. The downward trend in the proportion of UK-reared pigs for cured meat production in the UK appears to have levelled off.

UK Trade in Pork, Bacon and Ham

The latest data available for UK trade in pig meat is for June 2009, when 33,700 tonnes of pork was imported into the country – 33,200 tonnes from other EU countries.

In the same month, 6,800 tonnes of pork was exported from the UK – 5,400 to the EU and 1,400 to other countries.

All bacon and ham trade in the same month was with other EU countries: 26,900 tonnes were imported and 1,600 tonnes were exported.