{"id":78,"date":"2009-02-18T15:29:15","date_gmt":"2009-02-18T14:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/?p=78"},"modified":"2009-05-01T12:57:02","modified_gmt":"2009-05-01T11:57:02","slug":"hard-times-for-europe%e2%80%99s-pork-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"Hard times for Europe\u2019s Pork Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Europe\u2019s pork producers and processors continue to face many difficult challenges:<\/span>The industry continues to be confronted with ever-increasing competition as illustrated by Brazil\u2019s current negotiations with Russia to fill a greater proportion of imports and squeeze out existing European suppliers. Moreover, this competitive environment is now set against the backdrop of global recession in which sinking GDP in key markets such as Japan has resulted in a reduction in demand for pork meat imports. Nor has the threat of high feed prices been fully removed; soybean and corn prices may start to tick up again as planters reduced their input use due to the absence of credit lines.<\/span><\/p>\n

In such challenging market conditions a number of large players have been proactive in developing strategies to cope with these difficulties:<\/span><\/p>\n

Smithfield<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

No doubt smarting from BB&T Capital\u2019s downgrade from \u2018buy\u2019 to \u2018hold\u2019, the pork giant Smithfield announced an increase in its presence in Romania with a further \u20ac20 million investment in pig production in Gataia. This will ensure low cost meat exports once the current Swine Fever outbreak has passed and may also enhance supply synergies with their Spanish partner Campofrio.\u00a0 <\/span>Smithfields is evidently trying to develop their low cost production base in a view of its targeting of high value consumer markets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Vion<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Meanwhile Vion is gaining market share in both Germany and the UK through acquisition and organic growth, boosting their economies of scale. Their increasingly powerful market position has recently caused their pig suppliers to protest at low prices. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Danish Crown<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

While Smithfields and Vion are deploying a strategy of expansion to increase their domination of the market, Danish Crown, European\u2019s other pork giant, is rationalising their operations and pushing for greater modernisation and efficiency. This approach recognises and responds to the oversupply of slaughter capacity in Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With a declining global economy and increased competition in the European pork market, the strategies of these major players will be severely tested over the coming years. However, the reward for pursing the correct policy is not just weathering the current turmoil but emerging from recession stronger and more dominant than before.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe\u2019s pork producers and processors continue to face many difficult challenges:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cardy-brown.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}