Weekly pig prices and slaughter data for Great Britain.
The EU-spec SPP has inched up for the second week running, gaining 0.09p to stand at 178.07p/kg during the week ended June 20.
While this represents an overall gain of just 0.19p in the space of a fortnight, it comes as welcome relief, given the SPP has lost nearly 20p since the end of 2025, including some big weekly falls of late. The price index is still nearly 29p 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 showed relative stability after the previous week’s big reductions – there was a big reduction in Denmark, alongside a smaller gain France, with little change elsewhere.
The grade S EU reference price lost 1.5p to stand at 141.36p/kg during the week ended June 14. With the equivalent UK price inching up, the gap between EU and UK references increased to 43.4p, a relatively large gap, which will do nothing to support the UK pig market in the short-term.
After the year-on-year increase seen in the first four months of the year, the latest Defra figures show May UK clean pig slaughterings were down 1.7% on May 2025 at 842,000 head. As a result, AHDB’s estimated GB clean pig slaughterings have been significantly revised downwards, dating back a few weeks.
This means June estimated slaughterings have been trending below year-earlier levels. The figure stood at 158,906 head during the week ended June 13, 3,500 down on the previous week and 7,500 head below June 2025.
After increasing slightly last week for the first time in more than two months, average carcase weights in the SPP sample lost 1.33kg to stand at 90.71kg – the biggest weekly fall since AHDB SPP records began in 2014. The clearest sign yet the backlog is under control, it means carcase weights are now nearly 5kg below the recent April peak and 0.8g above year-earlier levels.
London feed wheat futures were quoted by AHDB on June 24 at £176.5/t for July, £3 up on last week, and £181/t for November, £2 higher.