Many quotations are moving sideways, among them those of the Germany / Netherlands / Denmark triumvirate. Meanwhile, even the price increase that has been going on in Spain since the beginning of the year is levelling off. The French could achieve a noticeable 1.8-cents’ plus for themselves. This way, France is able to expand its second rank among the five countries richest in pigs within the EU. Spain uncontestedly ranks first.

From the German producers’ point of view, the German quotation proves to be totally unsatisfactory which has made no further upward movement for a time as long as five weeks. In Great Britain, the quotation went up by a corrected 1.8 cents. Yet, according to BPEX information, 0.35 GBP (equal to EUR 0.41) are missing currently for achieving cost-covering production of slaughter pigs. The Spanish are also struggling, with the feed costs having increased much and the missing profitability resulting from it with regard to pig keeping. Although the Spanish pig stocks went up by 1.8 per cent, according to the latest livestock counting results, pig stocks are expected to be declining in the second half of 2011. However, it is intended that the quantities of live pigs on offer are being expanded in order to prevent high price jumps.

Trend for Germany: At the strongholds of carnival, in North Rhine-Westphalia in particular, several slaughter companies reduced production a little over the crazy days of carnival. After Ash Wednesday, the slaughter belts will be run at full capacity again, and meat sales will give the necessary impetus. In view of slightly decreasing weights, oversupply is not expected. Prospects are positive and estimated to remain steady at least.

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; farm-gate-price; 79 per cent killing out percentage, without value-added-tax (VAT)