After last week’s move upwards, the National Pig Association (NPA) said “normal service” was resumed as the EU-spec standard pig price dropped down again.
The standard pig price (SPP) resumed its “downward journey” by moving down by 0.33p to 211.14p during the week ended February 10, the NPA said.
This means the SPP has now lost 2.7p over the first six weeks of the year and is now 14.5p below the early-August high of 225.64p/kg.
The gap to the same week 12 months ago has narrowed to under 5p.
However, the all pig price (APP) increased again during the week ended February 4, gaining 1.16p to stand at 212.83p/kg.
This put it ahead of the SPP by 1.36p for the week, in line with the more “typical relationship” between the two price measures, the NPA said.
The EU reference dropped by a further 0.6p to 171.43p/kg during the week ended February 4, meaning it has now lost nearly 12p during the first four weeks of 2024.
“The gap to UK reference price has grown to nearly 37p, the biggest it has been for some time, making imports extremely competitive,” the NPA said.
“Last week, however, EU pig prices rose across a number of major EU pig producing countries, led by a 10-cents increase in Germany, alongside a similar rise in its sow price, with Belgium up by close to 12 cents.”
Slaughterings
Estimated GB slaughterings for the week ended February 10, at 152,812, was nearly 1,000 down on the week and only 2,500 down on the 2023 figure for the week, but was more than 26,000 down on 2022.
Carcase weights remained high, although the average in the SPP sample was down slightly 90.54kg during the week ended February 11, about a kilo up on the same week in 2023.
Cereal prices continue to move in the right direction. London feed wheat was quoted by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) on Wednesday (February 14) at around £162/t for March.
This is down £8 on last week, and £185.5/t for November 2024, £5 down on last week.
