UK: Volatility in standard pig prices

Lower prices have not entirely been driven by heavier pigs, said AHDB in a recent report. Price volatility was also seen across the weight bands, indicating that lower weight pigs have also been part of low-priced batches.

It is true that the heaviest weight band (105kg and over) has shown the most price volatility, reported Duncan Wyatt, Lead Analyst for red meat. In the three recent weeks showing strong declines (ending 2, 16, and 30 October), the weekly drop averaged 6.85p/kg each week. This weight band also then staged the biggest price recovery each following week, increasing by 6.14p/kg on average.

The 70-104.99kg band fell by an average of 3.79p/kg for those three strongly declining weeks and also staged an (albeit smaller) recovery of 1.55p/kg each following week.

Overall, the price drops over the six-week period ending 6 November looked like this:

• 70 to 104.99kg: -6.72p
• 105kg and over: -1.32p
• All pigs (SPP): -7.10p

In terms of numbers, the proportion of pigs in the SPP sample weighing 105kg+ has increased fairly steadily from 6% near the end of September to 9% in the past couple of weeks.

We did not see the number of heavy pigs in the sample increase disproportionately in the weeks with larger price declines. There were on average 6,300 105kg+ pigs in the sample in the three affected weeks, and 5,900 in the weeks following. This is only a difference of 400 in a sample of around 75,000 pigs.

It is also interesting to note that only in the first two lower-priced weeks did the total SPP sample size go up compared with the previous week. On average in those two weeks, increases in numbers of the heaviest pigs made up only 25-30% of the total increase in throughputs.