Dear readers,

            While the main quotations still show stability, some good things are happening:

• The newly founded German „Branchenkommunikation Fleisch” (Meat Industry Communication) company aims to change the image of the meat industry. In future, farmers, butchers and processors will pay €14 million a year into a joint advertising fund – in equal shares. The money is to be collected via the abattoirs: fee of €0.30 per pig or sow slaughtered and €1.20 per cow slaughtered will be retained and used to counter the actual political speech. It is a necessary move, as Özdemir is unable to be the minister of the whole German agribusiness.
• The number of pigs sent for slaughter in Denmark has dropped significantly since 2021,as stated by the market leader Danish Crown, therefore is necessary to streamline production in order to pay Danish farmers a competitive price for their pigs. The first major step: investing almost DKK 1 billion (around 134 million €) in a new and state-of-the-art bacon factory near Manchester in the UK, where the factory’s annual production of more than 200 million packets of bacon has already been sold to  British customers.
• Due to the lowering supply of pigs to the Danish Crown slaughterhouses, a Commission is proposing that the sow farmers who join the Cooperative receive a purchase guarantee, just like the fatteners, and that they are also entitled to a bonus payment at the end of the year. In return, they undertake to deliver a certain number of piglets each year to one or more fattening farms that are also connected to DC. The target in the future is for at least 90% of pigs to be slaughtered to come from tied piglet producers. Slaughter pig suppliers with their own piglets will continue to receive their traditional bonuses, while fatteners who purchase piglets from a DC member should give 15% of their special payment to the sow farmers.
• The U.S. Nebraska Department of Agriculture selected 76 meat processing facilities to receive grants intended to increase harvest capacity or product throughput from the Independent Processor Assistance Program. In total, more than $5.19 million will be awarded, following the $4.75 million awarded in September 2022. Of the 76 selected facilities, 26 are receiving funds for the first time. The fifty remaining awardees received initial funding in September 2022 and are receiving additional funding now.
• Researchers in Singapore have called into question the idea that plant-based alt-meat products are healthier than their conventional counterparts. Their research, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, compared the effects of diets based on plant-based meat analogues and traditional animal-based meats on the heart health of Singaporeans at risk for type 2 diabetes. The researchers looked specifically at levels of cholesterol and blood sugar, finding no significant changes in cholesterol profiles for either diet, though both diets were linked to improvements in some blood sugar markers. Concluding that there was no clear advantage of one diet over the other in improving heart health, the researchers suggest that the benefits associated with plant-based diets may not be applicable to plant-based meat analogues.

Events calendar:

• The Anuga Select China, formerly ANUFOOD China, is a renowned international trade fair for food and beverages since its founding year in 2014. The ninth Anuga Select China takes place on 3 days from Wednesday, 24.04.2024 to Friday, 26.04.2024 in Shenzhen.

Don’t Tell Me!

The plans of the Danish cooperative are to finance the move from being a supplier of raw materials to customers worldwide in the direction to increase the U.K. production, therefore they decided to reduce the number of its production sites in Denmark and close one of its major slaughterhouses (45 thousand/week) and lay off nearly 1,200 employees by mid-September this year. The company expects to free up around 250 million Danish crowns (35.82 million €) over the coming three years, which it intends to use for other investments.

The neighboring Netherlands have similar issues. Dutch slaughterhouses hooked around 3.85 million pigs in the first quarter of the year. Compared to the same period last year, this corresponds to a decrease of 1.3% but, if you look at the figures from the first quarter of 2019, there is a shortage of almost 140,000 pigs for slaughter. As in Denmark, piglets in particular are in high demand in Europe and more than 1.46 million head were exported from the Netherlands in the first quarter alone. The most important piglet buyer is traditionally Germany, which takes in an average of almost 52,000 piglets per week this year, while the Spaniards ordered around 44,500 fattening piglets every week in 2024.

Meanwhile slaughterhouses in the East are fighting with the pig suppliers, considering that there are enough pigs on the market and lowering the purchasing price is right…Don’t tell me!

European pig and piglet prices: HW= Hot weight; L= live weight;

COUNTRY	PIG(EUR)	TREND	PIGLET(EUR)	TREND	OBSERVATION
GERMANY	2,20 HW		85/25 kg
NETHERLANDS	1,95-2,22 HW		80/25 kg
BELGIUM	1,58 L		81/20 kg
DANEMARK	1,65 HW		93/30 kg
FRANCE	2,031 HW
ITALY	1,69-1,71 L115kg, 2,05-2,08 L160kg, DOC		146,5/30 kg
SPAIN	1,75 – 1,81 L		91-111/20kg
PORTUGAL	2,53 HW
AUSTRIA	2,16 HW		108,5/31 kg
POLAND	1,5 – 1,85 L		92-137/20-30 kg		Partner info; no quotation
CROATIA	2,05 – 2,15 HW		106-115/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
SERBIA	2,1 L		120-130/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
CZECH R.	2,13 – 2,17 HW		70-76/ 25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
SLOVAKIA	1,6 -1,67 L		107-113/25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
HUNGARY	1,63 – 1,74 L		107-113/25 kg		Partner info; no quotation
ROMANIA	1,61 – 1,71 L		107-117/25 kg		Partner info; no quotation