Weekly pig prices and slaughter data for Great Britain.
The EU-spec SPP bounced back after three consecutive weekly declines during the week ended April 20, gaining 0.39p to stand at 211.06p/kg.
Such has been the stability of the UK pig price over the past three months, the SPP is now only 0.3p below where it was at the end of January, having remained within a tight band of less than a penny (210.67-211.61p/kg) over the entire period.
The SPP is, however, now more than 7p behind where it was a year ago, when pig prices were still rising.
The much more volatile APP, which includes premium pigs, gained another 1.17p during the week ended April 6, making it nearly 2p gained in a fortnight, to stand at 213.1p/kg. This put it 2.4p ahead of the SPP for the week, much typical of the two price measures than much of the past year.
EU prices have also stagnated in recent weeks. Having dropped back by 0.7p the previous week, the EU reference price picked almost all of that up again during the week ended April 14 to stand at 187.97p/kg, with the gap to the equivalent UK reference price dipping below 21p.
After a spike last week, following the two shorter Easter weeks, estimated GB slaughterings were more than 8,000 lower for the week ended April 20 at 150,133. This was 5,500 down on the same week a year ago and still nearly 32,000 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 fell back slightly to 91.07kg in the SPP sample during the week ended April 21, still more than 1kg up on the same week in 2023.
London feed wheat was quoted by AHDB on Wednesday at £178/tonne for May, £5 up on last week and £202.50/t for November 2024, £6 up on last week.
To see the weekly price graphs, click here.