The league table now reads as follows:

149p Woodhead
148p Gill
147p Tulip
146p Vion, Cranswick

DAPP also moved ahead to 145.05p but is now lower than the shout price average.

Unfortunately the demand for pig meat is not universally good with the leg trade still slow, but a return to better weather would work wonders once we emerge from what must be the wettest drought period ever.

Spot bacon was traded in the 150p range with cutters worth 4p–6p ahead of this, but the market has not been helped by the weakness of the euro which traded on Friday worth 81.8p compared with 82.5p a week ago.

As a result cull sow quotes also eased by 1p-2p according to region and specification with most bids in a fairly wide 124p-128p range and the odd copper or two more available for special customers.

Weaner prices remain affected by high feed costs with the latest 30kg ex-farm weaner average almost unchanged at 345.96/head and continuing reports of good weaner availability due to better productivity and further reductions in the amount of available finishing space keeping a lid on prices.

As mentioned above feed values continue to creep ahead with the latest ex-farm feed wheat prices almost touching 3170/tonne whereas futures came off the boil by 32/tonne towards to end of the week, but July wheat is still quoted at 3177/tonne.