Many quotations went down noticeably. But according to what various market participants say, the bottom has now been reached. Central Europe can be localised as the origin of this pricing pressure, so that destabilisation of the European pig market was being talked about in other EU member countries to have been caused by Germany. The Central European countries in particular look to Germany as the "trouble spot". With its minus 4 cents’ price adjustment, the German quotation was a poor example. The Dutch, Belgian and Danish quotations followed suit, giving similar prices. On Thursday, France had already responded to last week’s price change.

The price was slightly revised downwards in Spain, too, which happened for the first time after calendar week 40 / 2010 and which was quite an untypical thing to be done for this time of the year. With Spain’s decrease and with having its own prices unchanged, Great Britain further expanded its leading position. For the third time in a row, Denmark maintained the price level already achieved. This is attributed to Denmark’s good opportunities for exports to third countries. From the German point of view the fact is difficult to understand that Danish Crown was able to pay steady prices over the past few weeks in a country which is structured as a cooperative, all in all. German slaughter companies, on the other hand, caused a 12 cents’ price decrease within just two weeks.

Trend for the German market: According to what is generally said, the disastrous price decline has ended now and the bottom has been reached. The quantities of pigs mature for slaughter on offer can be placed promptly at the beginning of the week. With the weather forecast being good for the days ahead, the demand for pork is expected to increase. From the producers’ point of view the prices urgently need to go up as the feed costs are expected to rise.

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)