We find a price of € 1,451 / kg live and weighing 110.53 kg live and 85.77 kg carcass, both the highest of the last 5 years in this week of October, as can be seen in the comparison of the graph.

There is the strong demand due to two very important factors:

1. The packing plant of the Pini Group has started operating last August, absorbing part of the production.
2. The packing plants number to export to China have increased. Currently there are 35 certified plants. Exports are being slowed down only because freezing capacity has been reached.

The weight of processing is significantly higher due to demand and because the producer is interested in optimizing its costs by increasing the sales weights.

All production that is not going to export to Asia, stays in the EU (fresh meat) at prices that do not help the industry to recover sales margins as usual in previous years.

In the first seven months of the year, exports have increased 9.2% compared with 2018, (1,119,583 tons in 2018 vs.1,222,188 tons in 2019).

Export to Asia have increased from 32.75% (2018) to 38.40% (2019) of total exports. Exports to China lead the way with an increase from 15.80% (198,424 tons in 2018) to 22.4% (306,645 tons in 2019) from total exports.

The EU still accounts for 50% of exports, but in 2015 France was our largest market with 347,601 tons per year, while China imported already 306,645 tons from January to July this year

Zafra International Livestock fair and IX Technical Conference on Iberian Pork

This week we had the opportunity to attend the IX Technical Conference on the Iberian Pig organised by IngaFood, a leading company in the production of Iberian pig in the Iberian Peninsula. These days are a meeting point and debate between farmers and professionals regarding issues of relevance of the Iberian hog sector.

Interesting topics were discussed as “Marketing of pork meat. Expansion Opportunities.“ by Mr. Manuel García Lorenzo (General Director of INGA FOOD and President of INTERPORC); and "New commercial horizons for the Iberian in Extremadura" by Mr. Fernando Rodríguez (Director-General Industrias Cárnicas Villar, Costa Food Group). We were also presented the project of a new processing plant that will begin construction before the end of the year with a capacity to process 400,000 hogs a year. Seven pork industry companies are involved as partners in this important project for the area and the Iberian sector. It will be in Zafra (Badajoz) and will be certificated for export to countries outside the EU.

From here, I would like to congratulate IngaFood for the excellent organised event, for the capacity of the call, that development year by year, for their enthusiasm, and for giving the opportunity to all attending to recognise and share the progress of Iberian Pig Production as meat of excellent quality worldwide not only in Spain but worldwide.