Piglet price stabilizes in sluggish market

After a few weeks of price declines, the DCA BestPigletPrice has regained a firm footing, although the piglet market still feels sluggish. On the pig market, the supply appears to be larger than initially thought. The sale of free piglets remains a challenging task for traders. The willingness to take on extra piglets is not there, even against historically low prices. The confidence that the pig price will seriously improve this spring is not very high. Exports of Dutch piglets are also not picking up. Sales to Spain do not exceed 30,000 units. For now, Germany is again a larger market for exports, as more than 30,000 piglets were sent there in the first weeks. In week 2, nearly 35% fewer piglets were exported compared to a year earlier. Prices for free piglets on the Spanish market are around €35 per piglet, depending on the group size this can be slightly more or less. Compared to last week, the price development is stable. There are traders who believe that the piglet price has dropped too low to stop any premiums. There are also traders who hold the opposite opinion. Based on the reports, the DCA BestPigletPrice stabilizes this week at €31.50 per piglet. The majority of the input at DCA provided this report. A spring upturn, like the ones that often appeared during this period in previous years, is not yet in sight. Unchanged The DCA Beurs Mutation Price also remains unchanged this week. The expectation in the market is that pig prices in Northwest Europe will remain stable in the coming weeks, in line with the pork meat cut prices from DCA that also show stability. The demand for pigs is not wild, and the supply is large. The backlog from the holidays is larger than expected. Many traders indicate that they still have groups left over this week. At 102.6 kg, the average slaughter weight is increasing, although it was higher last year. Historically, this tends to decrease again from mid-January.