Danish Crown foresee increased demand for pork in China
There will be great demand for pork in China this year, is convinced Lars Albertsen, global sales director at Danish Crown Pork. In his opinion, the current situation in the Chinese market looks similar to the one in the last quarter of 2019.
"There is really great demand from China right now. It's always hard to compare, but I actually think there is pressure right now like in the fall of 2019, where it also went really fast. This means that the orders we are taking in right now for shipping in the second half of April and the beginning of May are being made at rising prices," Mr. Albetsen said.
China is driving the global demand right now but there are also other countries in the Asia-Pacific area that are looking to increase their pork imports. Japan, the Philippines and Australia are looking for pork suppliers in the global market as Germany is currently banned from these markets due to the ASF issue.
At the same time, there is significantly less slaughter in the US than a year ago, so buyers in several countries have now turned their attention to Europe. "It is always tempting to put everything on a board when the odds of success are as good as what we are experiencing in China right now. However, we have chosen a different path. We have succeeded in continuously streamlining our setup, and have raised the share we can freeze for export. This gives us the opportunity to service both our good and regular customers in Japan and Australia, among other places, and at the same time benefit from the strong demand from China," explained Lars Albertsen.
Several ASF outbreaks reported in the last couple of months in China driven demand up in recent weeks, although no one has a clear idea about the real impact on the Chinese pig inventory. "Huge quantities of meat shipped from North America into China over the spring and summer made the prices go down a lot, but now that hump is gone, and the Americans have slowed down, so there are definitely more factors that come into play," believes Mr. Albertsen.
Recently, WH Group, China's largest pork processor announced that is looking to increase meat imports as the prices in the domestic market are going to remain elevated. Last year, the Chinese group imported 700,000 tonnes of meat, mainly pork.
Last week, the company announced the acquisition of a processing plant in Henan Province, China. ...
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