Pig farmers report prices of €1.78c/kg this week again, but €1.80c/kg is becoming more common, although factories are doing their best to keep a lid of prices. Some deals have been reported up to €1.82c/kg for some pigs this week and with a kill of 66,600 last week there is no spare pigs to be found by anxious procurement managers and agents.
The domestic market returns have increased of late and there is a noticeable decrease in the volume of pigmeat being imported into Ireland by some of the secondary processors. With the pigmeat market price increasing across the EU, the availability of low priced imported pigmeat to service both the processing packers who export market out of Ireland and the growing food service sector, has become limited.