Danish fresh and frozen pork exports for the first nine months of 2013 were down 2.4 per cent from the same period of the previous year to just under 815,000 tonnes, according to the German meat industry association, VDF. This reduction is less marked than the previous year, when the volume was down by 15 per cent.

Deliveries to the main destination, Germany, were down one per cent lower at just over 254,000 tonnes. Second market, Poland, imported slightly more than 104,000 tonnes, a drop of four per cent on the same period of 2012, while Danish pig meat exports to the UK were down by almost 11 per cent to 71,700 tonnes.

There was an increase of 1.6 per cent in exports to countries outside the EU at 235,100 tonnes. In this group, the main destination for Danish pig meat was Japan, where the volume was almost six per cent lower than in the first nine months of the previous year. In second place was Russia; here exports rose by more than 40 per cent from the previous year to 56,500 tonnes.