Inside: Pig Market
German slaughterhouses increase capacity
The slaughter figures also show that one day less was slaughtered in the Netherlands last week. For the first time in weeks, the slaughter figure has again fallen below the 1 mark. In Germany the slaughter hooks were well stocked.
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German slaughterhouses processed 1.011.984 pigs last week; more than 37.000 more than the week before. The pigs weighed an average of 15 grams less to 97,68 kilos. Since 5 weeks time has been in Germany again above the limit of 1 million pigs slaughtered. Although supply and demand were still in balance last week, the figures now imply an increasing supply.
The slaughter figure in the Netherlands shows a decrease of 19,5% to 256.000 in the week of King's Day. The average weight is 97 kilos (-0,20). However, the slaughter figure is 5% higher than last year in the week of King's Day.
Pushed with pigs
It is quite possible that more Dutch pigs were slaughtered in Germany last week, because only in the Netherlands was a slaughter day missing. In addition, the German pig price (the VEZG quotation) remained the same last week, while some slaughterhouse quotations in the Netherlands were already declining at that time.
Another reason may be that German fattening pig farmers have offered extra pigs, because May is associated with the failure of a few days of slaughter. In the first broken week in Germany, this immediately led to a significant reduction in the pig price (the VEZG quotation fell by -€0,05 to €1,37 per kilo). It is almost inevitable that the German slaughter figure will decrease again in the coming weeks.
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In recent weeks, sex has again exceeded the 5-year average.
Meat production up
In the first months of 2018, pork production in the European Union is ahead of last year. For example, 23,7 million pigs were slaughtered in January, 7% more than in the same month in 2017. In addition, the pigs were heavier in almost all countries; total production therefore increases by 9% to 2,19 million tons. January did have 1 extra working day, but after a correction to an equal number of working days, the slaughter figure in 2018 is still 2% ahead. This is in line with the growing pig herd.
What is striking is that significantly more was slaughtered, especially in price-setting countries with a large pig herd, such as Spain (+11%), Germany (+7%) and Poland (+13%). These figures have not been corrected to an equal number of processing days in January.