A rather underwhelming day for sellers with the SPP continuing its downward drift and dropping by 0.43p to 148.28 but this was far less severe than the German price which dropped a significant seven euro cents yesterday from €1.55 to €1.48, which works out at 133.2p in our money.
Spot bacon buyers were generally quiet today with one off loads traded in or around 145p/kg although regular sellers were able to achieve prices closer to 150p in most cases.
Weekly contribution prices are also heading into negative territory with a penny or so being clipped off some prices and reports of significant volumes of imported pig meat undercutting the UK market.
As a result, cull sow quotes were also trimmed back by around 4p/kg, into the 73-76p territory, but hopefully the European price drop is more of a correction than a trend as producers need every penny they can get in these challenging times for the industry.
Weaner values have remained at generally similar levels with the AHDB 30kg reference price quoted at £54.92/head and the 7kg average is now £37.49/head.
Finishing space is still on the short side and the spot weaner sector remains very much a buyers’ market and would benefit from a little more confidence in finished pig prices in the months ahead leading up to Christmas (that word already!) to re-stimulate UK demand from finishers.
UK grain futures prices are at generally similar levels than a week ago with November feed wheat quoted at £176.25/t and March 2019 at £179.85.
The ex-farm UK spot feed wheat average is quoted at £173.6/t compared with £169.7 a week ago.
UK protein prices have however tended to ease with 48% soya traded at the end of August at £315/t and 34% rape meal at around the £225/t mark.
And finally, following on from reports of the sixth case of ASF in China, although it is refreshing to note that the UK government has raised the risk of ASF entering the UK to “medium” but China lies on the other side of the world. However, this is not the case with Romania and Poland where there have also been recent ASF outbreaks and in total 744 confirmed cases have been identified in 9 European countries during July and August so perhaps the risk rating to the UK should be raised a bit more?
