Right in time before the deadline of 1 August 2010, the conversion factors used in the EU pig price comparison were updated by the ISN. As a consequence, there is some shifting in the corrected quotations, making the Dutch quotations differ considerably less from the German quotations, for instance. At the same time, the gap between the Danish and the Dutch quotations was downsized.

This week, the situation is well balanced on the European market for slaughter pigs for the most part. From large parts of Europe, the slaughter weights are reported to remain at a low level or even be decreasing and supply is said to be scarce of slaughter pigs. Yet, the quotations remain unchanged because demand for pork still is waiting for impetus to be given. Against the pan-European stagnation, the quotations went up in both France and Denmark. Demand still seems to be huge in those two countries, because last week's quotation remained unchanged.

Trend: The quantities of pigs for slaughter prove to be small still; thus, they can be marketed promptly. However, there are reports from food retailing that demand still is restrained. As a result of the cooler weather, demand for pork is yet expected to increase.

Explanation
¹corrected quotation: The official Quotations of the different countries are corrected, so that each quotation has the same base (conditions).
base: 56 per cent lean-meat-percentage; farm-gate-price; 79 per cent killing-out-percentage, without value-added-tax (VAT)