Starting from Germany, the quotations remained on an unchanged level in Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. On the one hand, the marketers most recently reported on decreasing quantities of pigs for slaughter on offer, and on the other hand the meat business appears much friendlier as to quantities. In view of the Christmas trade to come, the meat processing industry is going full speed.

With the Euro being more favourable currently, exports are given good momentum. Private storage signals to the customers that meat is not going to be much more economically priced in the near future.

In Spain, however, the prices’ downward trend has not yet come to a halt as a consequence of large quantities on offer. There, the producers have to cope with a quotation by almost 2 cents lower than before.

Even the Danish prices, which have proven to be astonishingly robust over the past weeks and independent of the market activities, were cut by 4 cents this current week.

For the first time after seven weeks, the French auction was held again at the Marché du Porc Breton (MPB). No more than half the usual number of pigs was sold by auction (25,000 pigs) in order to avoid that the auction be put under additional pressure on restart.

Trend for the German market:

Demand for pigs for slaughter has gone up considerably over the past days. As a result of the beginning of the month and the pre-Christmas trade, demand is increasing in meat sales. It is reported that slight price increases could be realised over the past days for some parts. So there is at least a chance for the prices to go up next Wednesday.