The EU-spec standard pig price (SPP) has dropped back again during the week ended May 25, losing 0.37p to stand at 211.05p.kg.
The National Pig Association (NPA) said this partly offsets the 0.65p gained over the previous fortnight and means the SPP remains within the narrow band of less than 1p (210.67-211.61p/kg) where it has been marooned since late-January.
It is now nearly 10p below where it was a year ago.
The all pig price (APP), which includes premium pigs, has been less volatile in recent weeks.
It gained just 0.2p during the week ended May 18 to stand at 211.81p/kg, building on the previous week’s gain of 0.48p. This left it just 0.4p ahead of the SPP for the week.
European pig prices for week ended May 19 were not available from the EU Commission this week.
The latest EU reference price gained 1p to stand at 188.15p/kg during the week ended May 12, narrowing the gap to the equivalent UK reference price to 21.5p.
Slaughterings
UK clean pig slaughterings in April were up 6.8% on April 2023 at 819,000 head, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra’s) latest official UK slaughter statistics show.
However, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s (AHDB’s) estimated GB slaughterings continued to trend well below last year.
The figure fell by 11,600 to 140,097 during the week ended May 25, a very low figure even by recent standards and nearly 17,000 down on the same week a year ago and 37,000 below the 2022 figure.
Average carcase weights moved up slightly to 90.84kg in the SPP sample during the week ended May 26, 1.4kg up on the same week in 2023.
London feed wheat was quoted by AHDB on Wednesday at just under £203/t for July and £223/t for November 2024, around £3 up on last week in both cases.
