The quotations in France, Denmark and Spain went down by 2 to 3 cents, but after last week’s 9 cents’ reduction of the German leading quotation, this seems to be quite a moderate price reduction. Apart from the unchanged German quotation, no price changes were reported from many other countries such as Austria and Italy.

So it looks quite questionable a matter whether or not the market assessments, which were made by some of the major German slaughter companies over past days, were justified. It rather seems to be a kind of strategy pursued by the German companies – and VION in particular – that the prices are already announced in writing to the suppliers on Thursday although valid for the next week only. With prices falling far behind the real demand-supply ratio on the live-animals’ market, fear is obviously meant to be fuelled of house prices.

Furthermore, pressure seems to be intended to be exerted on those who register prices. Or should it be possible that the pricing system, which is widely accepted by producers, marketers and slaughter companies all over Germany, is intended to be pushed ad absurdum? What’s for sure is that all parties involved are very much rattled by such negative market assessments. This also goes for the buyers of pork. A negative price spiral for the whole value chain would be the consequence.

Trend for the German market: Currently, the quantities of pigs mature for slaughter on offer are rather below average and are constantly in demand. According to what market participants report, the demand on the part of the slaughter companies is currently exceeding the offer. So, for the week ahead stable quotations are the least thing expected.

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)