With the enormous Chinese demand for pork, the European pig prices were kept in balance this slaughter week, according to figures provided by ISN. This allowed markets to avoid the seasonal price decrease typical of this time of year.

Export-oriented Denmark has been running quite a remarkable price rally over the past four weeks, contrary to the otherwise steady trend. All in all, the Danish quotation has succeeded in moving up a corrected 16 cents over this period. This has led to the Danes taking the lead this week in the European price structure of the five EU member countries most important in pig production.

A significant increase in prices is reported after a very long, price-stable phase from the Netherlands. The slaughter price increased by a corrected 5 cent. Last week, the Dutch slaughter company Van Rooi Meat had increased their prices by 3 cents, while other Dutch slaughter companies had kept their quotations steady. Due to the mood developing increasingly positively, the price of Beurs 2.0 followed this trend after twelve weeks unchanged. Because of that, the gap between the Netherlands and Germany, ranking fourth, has decreased considerably.

Unchanged quotations have been recorded in Belgium, in France, and in Austria, as well as in Germany. The seasonal price decrease is continuing in Spain in a hardly noticeably way. The slaughter numbers are quite extensive there, with the slaughter weights said to exceed last year’s level by a good 2 kg.