Soaring carcase weights pushed January UK pigmeat production fractionally above year-earlier levels, despite lower slaughter numbers.
January UK clean pig slaughterings were down 3.1% on January 2025 at 872,000 head, but pigmeat production, at 85,000 tonnes, was up 0.1% year on year.
Taking the weekly average, the UK figure of 197,000 head/week for January compared with 203,000 head/week in January 2025, a reduction of 3%.
Breaking the January figures down, 689,000 head were slaughtered in England and Wales, 15,000 head in Scotland and 168,000 head in Northern Ireland.
Sow and boar slaughterings were 2.3% lower year on year at around 18,000.
January was a difficult month for the UK pig sector, as it entered the year with a surplus of pigs, driven by good summer and autumn productivity and strong growth rates, compounded by autumn factory breakdowns. This resulted in pigs being rolled before and after Christmas, with numbers building up on farms and carcase weights rising to close to record levels.
Carcase weights
January carcase weights averaged 94.7kg across the UK, nearly 3kg up on December, and, more significantly, 3.7kg higher than in January 2025. This drove overall pigmeat production slightly higher year on year.
The latest AHDB GB weekly estimates suggest some progress may have been made in eating into the backlog, amid reports of one major processor putting on Saturday kills in a bid to catch up. They showed GB clean pig slaughterings at 177,950 head during the week ended February 7, 8,350 head up on the previous week and 7,000 head above year-earlier levels.
The average carcase weight in the SPP sample inched up again by 0.29kg to stand at 95.4kg, 3.3kg above year-earlier levels and not far off the record level recorded at the height of the pig backlog in January 2022.