Dear readers,
Some recent good news related to our industry:
- The MSD Animal Health vaccine development project African swine fever (ASF, led by Dr. Erwin van den Born, Senior Project Leader for Swine Biologicals R&D, and Dr. Ruud Segers, Head of R&D for Swine and Ruminant Biologicals at MSD Animal Health, announced a significant breakthrough: “We decided to include a strain with three deleted genes in one of our safety trials. While other candidates failed to meet safety standards, this one proved safe — the piglets remained healthy and protected. That’s when we knew we were on the right track.”
- Spain and China have concluded a mutual regionalization agreement for pork exports in the event of an outbreak of A ASF in either country , the Ministry of Agriculture in Madrid announced in a statement.
- The Philippines has issued new regulations to strengthen defenses against ASF while ensuring the safe import of pork. The guidelines introduce ASF regionalization, allowing for the recognition of ASF-free zones within accredited exporting countries, in accordance with World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) standards.
- The Regional Government of Castile and León, Spain, has approved €1.5 million to enable food companies from the region to attend trade fairs free of charge throughout 2026.
- A Reinvestment Payment Program grant of up to $1,304,464 was approved for Century Swine RE, LLC, under Pipestone Management, to support construction of a 12,000-head breed-to-wean sow farm South Dakota, U.S.
- The board also approved a Reinvestment Payment Program grant of up to $862,806 for Hord Family Farms of SD, LLC, under Pipestone Management, to support construction of an 8,773-head breed-to-wean sow farm.
Events calendar:
- On November 19-21, 2025, the international AgroFood Summit 2025 will take place in Mersin, Türkiye. The summit will focus on global and regional trends in grain, oilseed, and pulse markets as well as new logistics opportunities for the Black Sea region, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia.
- The Suisse Tier in Lucerne is a national Swiss trade fair for livestock farming, organized by Messe Luzern AG. The fair will take place on 3 days from Friday, 21. November to Sunday, 23. November 2025.
Time After Time
Last week some important pig producing countries had a national holiday on 11 of November. Usually, nothing special is happening on the pig market in this time. While the German quotation remained unchanged, in the neighboring Netherlands Vion started to reduce the purchasing price and, unsurprisingly, the other Dutch slaughterhouses followed them. Next day the Danes also reduced the purchasing price.
The struggle of Vion is long lasting, it’s German locations are also under pressure, even after being sold. The German producer organization EG Südbayern wants to close its slaughterhouse in Landshut, Germany, acquired from Vion last year. CEO Erwin Hochecker no longer sees any economic prospects for it. Currently, approximately 16,000 pigs are slaughtered in Landshut each week. CEO Hochecker justifies the decision by citing a lack of profitability. “We don’t see any profit in the near future.” Furthermore, “the available budget is needed for future investments.” Some of the slaughter pigs from Landshut will be transferred to the Vilshofen site, which can slaughter up to 21,000 pigs per week. Hochecker speculated that the permit there could possibly be increased slightly.
Let’s be honest: pig farmers made profit in the last two years and, as usual, opportunity investors also entered into business. The Chinese market also did as usual: found some reasons to move from the European pork suppliers to another continent and operators. While, theoretically, companies from ASF positive countries could not supply pork to the Asian giant, Russian pork export is approved.
Also as usual, the European producers with overproduction, in the lack of other opportunities, are suppling goods to the generally net importer East-European countries at a low price, largely compensated by their high end national markets. East-European pig farmers, usually less organized and efficient, are under the pressure of the local slaughterhouses, hardly able to operate on the price levels requested by the market chains. What follows? Opportunity investors leave the industry, small and inefficient farms are closing, consolidation continues. In half a year farmers are coming out stronger and slaughterhouses will be back between the blades of the scissors: farmers and retail. This happens time after time.
