2023-07-15 16:45:57
– Too many pigs: How the “Päulistau” plunged the fatteners into a crisis
In an emergency operation, 15,000 pigs were frozen at the end of last year. Their meat now ensures permanently low prices. But why were too many pigs bred in the first place?
Published: 07/15/2023, 18:45
The abundance ensures historically low prices for pork: sows on a farm in the canton of Bern.
Photo: Christian Beutler (Keystone)
“2022 was the worst year I’ve ever experienced,” says Meinrad Pfister. He has been running a combined breeding/fattening operation with ten sows and 500 fattening pigs in Altishofen LU for twenty years. Not only the historically low price of pork but also the simultaneous increase in feed and energy costs would have weighed heavily on many pig farmers.
“Although I was always able to pay all wages and feed bills, I know of other companies that were no longer able to do so.” That was bad for young families, for example, who had invested a lot, had to go into debt and then slipped into this crisis.
The situation was particularly dramatic in autumn. In the Swiss stables, the sows got fatter and heavier from week to week. The price of their meat has been only 3 francs per kilo for weeks. Therefore, the fatteners waited with the sale, so that there was no space for the offspring. It came to the “slaughter sow traffic jam”. Welfare problems loomed as there was barely enough room for the animals to turn around, lie down, or scrape off dirt anywhere. For the pig farms, it was the biggest crisis in recent decades.
Liberation through export and freezing
The reasons for this lie in the pig cycle and in the pandemic, explains Heinrich Bucher, director of the industry organization Proviande. «During Corona, shopping tourism fell away, people consumed a lot more domestically. That led to a high demand for pork.” Despite warnings from the associations, many pigs continued to be fattened. Because first and foremost, every owner should look out for themselves. That means: “Everyone continues to produce and hopes that others will give up.”
If the prices for slaughter pigs increase, the attractiveness in fattening and thus the demand for piglets increases. Piglet production is expanded, more sows are inseminated. After eleven months, the pigs conceived in this way are born, fattened and ready for slaughter. The range of pork is increasing. If it exceeds the demand, the price goes down. And as a result, the demand for piglets. Although piglet production is falling, the effects are only visible eleven months later: the supply of slaughter pigs falls and prices rise again. (eh)
At the end of the year, a solution was urgently needed. The liberation was successful in a one-time action: On the one hand, it was decided to export pork for the first time in order to relieve the local market. Most of the 3980 tons were exported to Germany.
On the other hand, a total of 15,000 pigs were frozen – that corresponds to 570 tons of pork. Since then, they have been stored in cold stores across Switzerland, where ice creams or frozen berries are otherwise kept. Freezing meat is a common measure when demand is too low – but not in this quantity.
suffered a loss of 200 million francs
The crisis was expensive. The Suisseporcs association estimates the total loss at 200 million francs for the past year.
The industry also had to resort to money from the federal government. CHF 2.1 million from the pot for market relief measures, which was used to support the price of veal in other years, was used for deep-freezing. This money went to the slaughterhouses, such as Micarna from Migros and Bell from Coop, as compensation. Because frozen food no longer has the same value as fresh meat.
The other measure also went into the money. “The fatteners and the pig dealers paid for the around 11 million Swiss francs to export the pork,” says Bucher from Proviande.
Cold rooms at Micarna and Bell have already been emptied
In May, just in time for the start of the barbecue season, Proviande decided to open these warehouses. The frozen “Schwinigs” subsequently ended up on store shelves as cervelats, meatloaf or marinated steaks. The cold rooms in the Migros and Coop slaughterhouses have now been emptied.
Where ice creams are usually kept, 15,000 pigs were frozen at the end of last year: an employee at the wholesale butchery Bell AG (BS) scans the labels attached to the pig halves.
Foto: Gaëtan Bally (Keystone)
15,000 pigs may sound like a lot, but that’s not even half a percent of the amount consumed in Switzerland each year. Last year pork consumption was 184,400 tons. That is 20.7 kilograms per capita – and around twice as much as beef.
Overproduction is now over. But that doesn’t mean that pork is noticeably more expensive. The current price of CHF 3.80 per kilo, which the fatteners receive, is still too low, says Pfister. CHF 4.50 would cover costs.
Pork is also very cheap at the supermarket checkout. At the Coop, cervelats cost 11.50 francs per kilo. Lumberjack steaks are available for 25 francs. Such cheap prices hit the image. Pork is considered inferior and less healthy.
This is a problem for the producers. “Permanently low prices are the worst,” says Mäster Pfister. “Even loss-leader offers in the store of 40 to 50 percent bother us.” This leads to a similar development as with detergents. All consumers wait for discounts and only then buy pork. Pfister says: “That’s why permanent campaigns are a thorn in our side.”
Meat consumption per capita was 50.8 kilograms in 2021: a lot of meat is eaten in Switzerland – especially during the summer barbecue season.
Photo: Plainpicture.com
These difficulties would be discussed in talks with the retailers. “We don’t interfere in the margin policy of the wholesalers,” says Pfister, who until recently was President of Suisseporcs, the pig farmers’ association. This is an entrepreneurial freedom, the food market is highly competitive. He is not too critical, because: “The major distributors are also helping us to boost sales in the event of seasonal fluctuations in demand, for example due to fluctuations in the pigs’ fertility phases.”
Only about a fifth ends up with the farmers
An analysis by the Northwestern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences shows how little of the amount that consumers pay at the till ends up with the farmers. It has shown that significantly less pork ends up with livestock farmers than beef. It is 20 percent for kidney pieces and 18 percent on average for ham.
The study authors around the economist Mathias Binswanger attribute this to the market power on the demand side. “Many small providers, such as individual animal owners, meet a few large buyers – the two major distributors Migros and Coop.” Under such conditions, the producer price tends to be pushed down because buyers can determine the price. “The providers have no chance of selling to other buyers,” says the study.
The new Fair Markets Switzerland FMS association wants to monitor such mechanisms in detail. Because Migros and Coop have a strong influence, says Stefan Flückiger from the FMS. The economic principle then applies: if prices fall, the buyers quickly pass the reduction on to the producers. “If, on the other hand, they rise, the producers usually only benefit with a delay.”
Flückiger finds it worrying that “the big money is earned” in the downstream areas such as processing and retailing, while at the same time the prices for the farmers are being pushed down more and more and they are getting less and less from the consumer franc.
Schweinbauer Pfister does not want to experience such a crisis again. He has reduced the stock on his farm by a few pigs. For longer-term planning, he waits to see what the next generation wants to do. “That’s why,” says Pfister, “pigs remain our most important branch of the business, even if prices are low.”
More about food This text is from the current issue. Read the entire Sunday newspaper here in the e-paper.Edith Hollenstein is a business editor. She mainly writes about retail/consumption, tech companies and the creative industries. More info
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