In view of a really brisk demand for slaughter pigs, the German leading quotation went up by 3 cents last Wednesday. But the country's two leading slaughter companies Toennies and Vion do not seem to be able to accept this level of quotation. However, paying discounted prices does appear to entail incomprehension not only in Germany but throughout Europe.

Almost all EU member countries that are significant in the pig-keeping sector are recording a similarly tight supply situation in the slaughter pig market. They increased their respective quotations by about the same extent as their German competitors. The Danes as well, who completely disregarded other EU member countries’ price fluctuations since the beginning of the year and left their quotation unchanged, have now announced a price increase by a corrected 2.7 cents.

Across the borders, the most discussed topic currently is the way Germany is going to take and, in particular, whether or not Toennies will be able to enforce their discounted price. It’s a guess of the Austrian VLV that Toennies’ ban on imports towards China will play a major role in the engagements around the discounted prices. A French market participant has stressed that another bouncing of prices similar to the beginning of the year would be harmful to the European meat market.

Trend for the German market:

On the domestic live animal market, pig demand has been going well since the start of the week. With regard to demand, the quantities of live pigs on offer remain rather small. So, some marketers’ attempts are successful to circumnavigate slaughter companies that pay discounted prices. These are, therefore, being offered considerably fewer pigs. All that remains now is to keep calm; the prospects of the market to run free are on the rise.

(Source: ISN - Interessengemeinschaft der Schweinehalter Deutschlands)

Explanation
1) corrected quotation: The official Quotations of the different countries are corrected, so that each quotation has the same base (conditions).
2) These quotations are based on the correction formulas applied since 01.08.2010.
base: 57 per cent lean-meat-percentage; farm-gate-price; 79 per cent killing-out-percentage, without value-added-tax