EU pigmeat production remained high in April, finishing the month around 4% up on the year at 1.89 million tonnes, according to AHDB Pork.
This left production for the first four months of the year 6% ahead of the same period in 2014, prompting AHDB Pork to comment that, with an increase on this scale at a time when demand is still being hit by the Russian ban and economic difficulties, it was “no surprise” that EU pig prices have remained subdued.
The April increase was produced by varied trends across member states with strong growth taking place in Spain and the Netherlands, on top of an “unusually large rise in recorded Danish slaughterings”.
Such growth was partly offset by lower throughputs in Germany (down 1%), France (-3%) and Poland (-13%), possibly due to the timing of Easter.
Despite the various April declines, France was the only leading producer to record lower slaughterings in the full first four months of the year, emphasising the “relatively plentiful supply situation” across the EU as a whole.