Philippe Mallétroit – Director for France and Africa
Hog market price
After a market very quiet in Europe in June, the pork price in Germany fell sharply by 10 cents per kg during the first week of July. This has led to price declines in other European countries.
In France, the pork price increased by 6.3 cts per kg during the month of July to reach 2.132 € per kg carcass, before to start to fall since the end of July. Between 25th of July and 19th of August, the price dropped by 19 cts to be less than 2 € per kg carcass.
Nevertheless, the pork price remain has a good level of profitability, even if it is lower than in 2023.
Pork prices in France: 2023 vs 2024
The average price was 1.572 € in 2022 for the same period (7 first months).
All of us know there are some pork prices cycles. Since the last two years the profitability is good for pig producers in France. We also know that at some point the prices will be lower, but we don’t know yet when.
Evolution of pig production in Europe
Recently, IFP (French Pig Institute) published interesting figures in their booklet “Le Porc par les Chiffres” *about pig production in France and in Europe. First, a look of the evolution of the pig inventory in Europe in the main pig producing countries:
Clearly pig production is decreasing in Europe (by 5.8 % between 2012 and 2022), but there are differences between countries. While most of them lost 5 to 10 % of their pig production, some have suffered a very strong decline, especially Germany (-24.6%) who was the biggest European pig producer and who is now number two. At the same time, the pig production increase has been very strong in Spain (+34.9 %), and Spain is now the biggest pig producer in Europe.
Main production regions in Europe
Source: IFIP
The top 10 biggest regions for pig production in Europe in 2022:
Pig production in France
In 2021, 23 million finisher pigs have been produced in France from 14 100 pig farms. 9 253 farms (65% of all pig farms) who have sold more than 300 head (finisher pigs + piglets) produce 99.2 % of the French production.
In 2021, about 51.5 % of the pig farms have produced between 300 and 5 000 pigs, and 4.5 % of the farms (641 farms) have produced 10 000 or more pigs.
73.3 % of the pig production is in West of France.
The French pig industry is dominated by the cooperative model. In 2022, there were 32 cooperatives who marketed 20.2 million pigs (88.9 % of the whole French production) produced by 6 872 producers (cooperative members).
Source : Marché du Porc Français, IFIP
*https://ifip.asso.fr/documentations/46190-le-porc-par-les-chiffres-2023-2024-gratuit-a-telecharger/