SPP average tips over £2/kg mark for September

The average price for EU-spec finished pigs in the four weeks ending 8 October was 200.3p/kg, 1.3p/kg above the previous four-week average. Prices hit the £2/kg barrier in the week ending 17 September, averaging 200.2p/kg, and remained above this threshold throughout the period.

The EU-spec APP followed the trend set by the SPP of continued gains, topping 203.6p/kg in the week ending 1 October. In the four weeks to 1 October, the APP averaged 203.1p/kg, up 1.4p/kg (0.7%) on the previous period.

While breaching the 200p/kg mark will have been a welcome development by producers, they still fall short of the cost of production, which rose to 240p/kg deadweight in Q2 2022.

Slaughter numbers dropped in the period, with clean pig slaughter for the four weeks ending 8 October estimated at 664,800 head, an average of 166,200 per week. This was back 15,000 head on the previous four weeks, mostly the result of very low slaughter numbers in the week ending 24 September. In that week, which was a four-day working week due to the Queen’s funeral, only 138,500 clean pigs were slaughtered, 36,890 fewer than the average weekly kill in the rest of the period. Year to date, 7.10 million pigs have been processed, 0.9% (64,200 head) down on the same period in 2021.

Carcase weights have been creeping back up in recent weeks, with the average across the 4-weeks to 8 October at 90.04kg for EU-spec SPP. This compares to an average of 88.04kg in the previous four-week period (+1.99kg), and in line with carcase weights back in June. The EU-spec APP average carcase weight also increased, up 1.54kg to 88.41kg for the four weeks to 1 October.  

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