Weekly pig prices and slaughter data for Great Britain.
After losing more than 2p last, the EU-spec SPP has moved back up, gaining 1.25p to stand at 179.51p/kg during the week ended August 15.
This continues the pattern of the SPP moving up and down in consecutive weeks since early May. The net effect is that the SPP is 0.7p below where it was in early May,. It is now 28p below where it stood a year ago, on the back of an imbalance of supply and demand, compounded by low EU prices.
The latest Tribune roundup of EU prices showed welcome upward movement across the board, led by 10 eurocents increases in both the German base finished pig price and the sow price. There were gains elsewhere, with the exception of Ireland and Denmark, where the base pig remains below €1/kg.
Before these latest increases, the EU reference price (S-grade) increased by 2.4p to reach 137.69p/kg during the week ended August 9. The headline gap between the EU and UK reference prices narrowed to around 47p, still more than double the typical difference.
The latest Defra figures showed July UK clean pig slaughterings were up 5.8% on July 2025 at 909,000 head, with pigmeat production 5% higher at 83,000 tonnes.
This continues the trend throughout this year, with AHDB’s summary of the Defra figures showing UK clean pig slaughterings over the first seven months of 2026 up 4.1% year on year, alongside a 4.8% increase in sow and boar slaugherings.
Estimated GB clean pig slaughterings, at 163,866 head during the week ended August 15, were 1,500 down on the previous week and 9,500 head above the 2025 figure.
Average carcase weights moved up fractionally to stand at 90.02kg in the SPP sample. Carcase weights are 5.5kg below the recent April peak and 0.4kg above year-earlier levels.
The extreme hot weather of recent weeks will have impacted productivity in the short-term and longer-term, with some heavy losses reported on farms during first heatwave, alongside what are likely to be slower growth rates.
London feed wheat futures were quoted by AHDB on August 19 at around £205/t for both November and January, £4 and £6 up on last week, respectively.