The major German slaughter companies’ announcing of prices of 1.68 euros given mid-week last week was effective: It was not only in Germany but also in Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium that the prices went down by -5 cents. Even in Denmark the price is being exerted pressure on, quoted at a converted 1.74 euros (equal to -3 cents, checked against the previous week).

Compared with the German producers, the Danish producers are in a very good position these days; the Danish quotation at least is ahead of the German prices by almost 12 cents.

Spain and France both are scarcely hit by price reductions this current week of slaughter. There, the quotations went down by no more than -1 cent.

Trend for the German market: Demand on the part of the slaughter companies is very modest currently. At the same time, the dealers and marketers themselves are not given clear information by the slaughter companies about when slaughtering is scheduled over the Christmas holidays. Forward-thinking planning is being made very difficult this way, but maybe this is just what is wanted to happen by some people. Lower slaughter weights as well as large numbers of slaughters carried out last week indicate that many farmers brought forward the selling of some of their batches. Whether or not this is sufficient for the current price level to be taken into 2013 is still unanswered from today’s point of view.

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)