The quantities of pigs for slaughter on offer is increasingly unsettling the market balance. At the same time, the processing industry has not stopped complaining.

German slaughter companies built up massive pressure over the past weeks, causing the German leading quotation to fall by 5 cents last Wednesday. Altogether, the price is falling with a range of a corrected 2.7 cents in Denmark to 5.1 cents in Austria.

Although having been on a slide for 11 weeks, the Spanish quotation continues to be leader among the five major pig-keeping countries in Europe.

However, the price gap shrank to a corrected 20.6 cents following 35 cents at the beginning of July.

The distance between the Dutch and German quotations, though, grew with the Dutch quotation being 10 cents below that of Germany.

Trend for the German market:

At the beginning of the week, uncertainty characterises the situation on the pig slaughter market. The larger quantities have been taken by the slaughter companies only after longer lead time. As a general rule, short-term marketing is impossible.

The market might be relieved to some extent by the summer weather this week. All in all, however, the arguments talking up price decreases are prevailing.