The EU-spec standard pig price (SPP) currently sits at 209.50p/kg as of July 6, meaning it suffered a weekly loss of 0.91p.
Senior livestock analyst with the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), Freya Shuttleworth, said that, in June, the EU-spec SPP averaged 210.26p/kg.
This is a decline of just under a penny compared to the monthly average for May.
During the month, AHDB recorded two large falls in weeks ending June 8 and June 22, however these were partially offset by smaller increases in the remaining weeks.
The EU-spec all pig price (APP) however, has seen modest growth month on month, averaging 212.63p/kg in June, Shuttleworth said.
Larger weekly declines were seen in the APP prior to the SPP, with only one week falling into the June average (week ended June 15), this meant the smaller uplifts in the remaining weeks outweighed the decline.
Although weekly price changes were more pronounced than in previous months, the monthly average EU-spec SPP has moved by just 1.65p in the first six months of the year.
Looking at previous years, this is a relatively small movement and indicates that market stability continues in the domestic market, Shuttleworth said.
“Since the SPP price series was introduced in 2014, this year is the only year to record a price change of less than 2p in monthly averages between January and June, with the last three years having all seen significant movement in price during this period (20p in 2023, 47p in 2022, 13p in 2021).
However, it is noted that despite the size of change, 2024 is the first year since 2015 to record a downward movement.”
The trend is generally repeated for the APP, except in 2024 where the direction of change differs to the SPP.
Slaughterings
Provisional estimates indicate that slaughter throughputs have picked up marginally in June, compared to May, most likely due to the impact of two bank holidays during May, Shuttleworth said.
The availability of pigs is still reported as running tight, however kill numbers have begun to show some small year on year gains, again likely due to comparing to a lower kill period, with hot weather impacting the market in 2023.
Pig meat production is supported by higher carcase weights. Average weights for the SPP sample in June stood at 90.6kg, a marginal decline from May but an uplift of over 2kg compared to last year.
