Weekly pig prices and slaughter data for Great Britain.
The EU-spec SPP dropped back by another 0.2p to stand at 210.76p/kg during the week ended May 4, following the previous week’s 0.1p decline.
It means the SPP has now fallen for five of the past six weeks, during which time it has lost 0.84p. However, after more than three months of small fluctuations within a band of less than 1p (210.67-211.61p/kg), it is still only 0.6p behind where it was in late January. It is, however, now nearly 9p below where it was a year ago, when pig prices were still rising.
The much more volatile APP, which includes premium pigs, lost another 0.5p during the week ended April 27 to stand at 211.79p/kg, after losing 1.31p the previous. That virtually wiped out gains of nearly 2p over the previous fortnight. This left it just 0.33p ahead of the SPP for the week.
The EU reference price more than made up for the previous week’s fall, gaining 1.1p during the week ended April 28 to stand at 188.29p/kg, narrowing the gap to the equivalent UK reference price to just over 20p, which should help our competitiveness versus imports.
Estimated GB slaughterings were 2,400 higher than the previous week at 152,543 during the week ended April 27. This was 5,400 down on the same week a year ago and still nearly 37,000 below the 2022 figure, when extra kills were taking place to get through the backlog.
AHDB’s weekly slaughter estimates are always subject to revision when Defra’s official monthly UK slaughter statistics are published.
Carcase weights inched up by just by 0.06kg to 90.48kg in the SPP sample during the week ended May 5, more than 1kg up on the same week in 2023.
London feed wheat was quoted by AHDB on Wednesday at £190/tonne for May, £11 up on last week and £213/t for November 2024, £12 up on last week.
To see the weekly price graphs, click here.