The quotations are noticeably going down throughout Europe. Spain as a holiday country has also been hit hard this time with a corrected minus 5 cents. After the summer months of high prices, the seasonal autumn downturn follows in Spain.

In France, the situation is still difficult on the slaughter market; so the quotations are going further down and are getting close to the corrected Danish quotation which ranks last on the list.

The reasons for price reductions seem to be mostly the same throughout Europe: sufficient supply of pigs mature for slaughter, less demand for pork, quiet export business.

In Germany, the quotations did not quite follow the price demanded by the meat-processing business. Internal prices were not given by the slaughter companies. Neither Ireland nor Great Britain is yet affected by the downward trend.

Trend for the German market: Smooth marketing is an indicator for the current week’s pigs-mature-for-slaughter market. Short-term marketing cannot always be done in a regional way, with the order books showing massive gaps as from the middle of the week. Some slaughter companies continue slaughtering despite the upcoming public holiday in some of the German federal states, so no backlog supply must be expected. There is real hope for a soon ending of the downward trend, but there still is some uncertainty that needs to be coped with when taking a look at the next quotation.