Pig slaughtering in Germany continues to decline

The strong decline in pig slaughter in Germany continued unabated in September. According to data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), almost 3.87 million animals were hooked in local slaughterhouses in the month under review; that was a good 10% less than in September 2021. Pork production was 10.4% below the level of the same month last year. Normally, slaughter increases seasonally from August to September, but this year the slaughter rate unusually decreased by 1.4%. Around 35 million pigs butchered The balance sheet for the first three quarters of 2022 does not look much better. According to the statisticians from Wiesbaden, a total of 35.33 million pigs were butchered in this period; compared to the same period in the previous year, this means a minus of 3.51 million animals or 9.0%. Pork production even fell by 9.8% to 3.36 million tons due to the average slaughter weight falling by 800 g to 95.2 kg per pig. The dramatic decline in local pork production becomes ...