Weekly pig prices and slaughter data for Great Britain.
The EU-spec SPP began 2026 with its biggest weekly reversal since October 2021, losing 3.7p to stand at 193.44p/kg during the week ended January 3, with carcase weights soaring to levels last seen during the pig backlog in 2022.
The reversal, which followed a 0.12p increase during the last week of 2025, from a small kill, means the price index stands at its lowest point since July 2022.
The SPP has now lost nearly 15p since August 2025 and 6.4p since the start of December. The latest decline left it 12p below where it was during the first week of in 2024.
The first week of the year, following the festive period, often sees the SPP drop back – and this week is still not a typical one, with the sample comprising 44,000 head, compared with, typically, 53,000 to 56,000 head.
But the longer-term downward trend is alarming and is driven by various factors, including plummeting EU prices and ample supplies, with pigs regularly being rolled and backing up on farms over the past month, contributing to the high carcase weights. The situation has not been helped by various factory breakdowns.
The latest Tribune EU market round-up showed the only notable setback last week was in France, alongside a small drop in the Netherlands. Significantly, the Spanish base pride stood on, after some heavily falls in December following confirmation of African swine fever in Catalonia, as did the German finished pig and sow price.
Spain’s ASF outbreak has helped pushed the headline UK-EU price difference to a new record. The EU reference price (Grade S) lost 3.6p to stand at 139.6p/kg during the week ended December 14, widening the gap to the equivalent UK price to beyond 61p, highlighting the availability of cheaper imports. A further update on the EU reference price is expected this week.
The latest AHDB estimate showed GB clean pig slaughterings at 183,690 head during the week ended December 20, more than 16,000 head below the same week in 2024, and at 86,948 during the quiet Christmas week, ended December 27.
The figures, which are often subject to revision, suggest GB slaugherings were well down on 2024 throughout the first three weeks of December.
Average carcase weights remained significantly above year-earlier levels during the latter part of 2025 for the reasons continued above. This has continued into 2026, with the average in the SPP sample for the week ending January 3 increasing by 2.5kg on the week before Christmas to stand at 94.48kg. This was 3kg above year earlier levels and represented levels not seen since the height of the pig backlog in the first two months of 2022 when weights peaked at nearly 96kg.
London feed wheat futures were quoted by AHDB on January 7 at £162/t for January, £4 down on pre-Christmas levels, and £166/t for March, in line with the pre-Christmas figure.