Reflections on the World Pork Conference

Jonathan Eckley, International Trade Development Director, reflects on his recent trip to Hong Kong and China where he attended the World Pork Conference and met with key import and export representatives from around the world.

I surprisingly find myself in Schiphol Airport this morning – delays and missed connections have seen us re-routed through Amsterdam on the long trip back from Qingdao, China. This has given me the opportunity to reflect on last week’s trip to Hong Kong and China.

It’s been an insightful time. Hong Kong is traditionally a high-value, albeit reasonably niche, outlet for UK pork and processed pig meat, and while we saw some high-quality UK product on shelves, I think a challenged economy was evident with a more modest offering of high-end groceries at premium retail.

The World Pork Conference in Qingdao, the first since 2019, was an interesting couple of days bringing together leaders from all the main pork-producing nations.

It was clear there is currently ample supply to meet demand around the world. However, geopolitics and conflict continue to drive challenges on the global stage.

The message from China was clear: scale has been reached and the focus is now on investing in lifting the quality and efficiency of production, with one eye on international markets.

Competitively priced pork has been abundant from South America, particularly heading towards the Asian markets, and this looks to be the case for some time to come.

It was clear that together with the plentiful supplies currently within the EU, competition is going to remain strong around the world for the remainder of this year and into 2027.

Despite this, UK pig meat exports in the first half of 2026 added an incredible £267m back to the UK pork sector, 5% higher than year-earlier levels. This underlines how important international markets are in complementing our largest market, the UK.

The ability to sell every part of the carcase is critically important to the UK sector, with demand for products around the world.

This is why we continue to work tirelessly on the reputation of the UK as a supplier of quality pork and pig meat products.

For example, working with the industry and Government to ensure the UK has a broad portfolio of markets open to our exporters, and also promoting the UK as a supplier of quality pork and pig meat products on key global markets that consumers can have confidence in.

This week the team were in Miami, showcasing product from the UK to buyers from the Americas and Caribbean regions at the Americas Food and Beverage show.

Next month all roads lead to Paris where we’ll host the UK’s leading exporters on the Quality Meat from Britain pavilion at the world’s largest and most significant trade show of the year: SIAL Paris.

The year will wrap up with events promoting the UK pork sector in Japan and the Philippines.

My door-to-door journey, in excess of 30 hours, gave plenty of time for reflection. I conclude that in a tough global market, exports matter!