The European mature pigs market appears well balanced this week. The Spanish, Dutch, Danish, French and Austrian quotations have mostly moved sideways, with some marginal changes observed in Central European states.

In Britain, the quotation rose slightly for the third week in a row, having broken the €2 barrier earlier this month.

Standing in contrast to the rest of Europe, the German quotation fell by 2 cents last Friday. ISN, the German pig industry body, has criticised slaughter companies for wielding their influence to pressure producers in Germany into accepting artificially low prices.

The organisation said on Tuesday that "The past week's price increase was… taken back almost completely" and laid the blame once more with the powerful slaughter companies, who, they said, "Threatened with discounted prices and exerted price pressure."

Johann Schlederer of Austria’s VLV said, "Although the German quotation takes a leading position towards the neighbouring countries, [they] proved to be unimpressed this time by the German argy-bargy related to discounted prices."

Apart from Germany, only producers in Ireland saw prices drop last week. Irish price cuts follow weeks of sideways movement.