site.btaUPDATED Spike in Pork Prices Is Seasonal, Not Speculative - Minister

Meat prices spike every summer and the current increase is not speculative, Agriculture Minister Kiril Vatev said here Monday. He was asked by reporters to comment a persistent increase in pork price: by 7.5% in recent months, according to data on the economy ministry's food market information platform. 

Among the reasons for the current spike, the minister mentioned the higher costs of raising animals on pig farms.

He expects prices to fall in the autumn.

Tsvetan Iliev of the Association of Industrial Pig Breeding in Bulgaria said that animal breeding is heavily dependent on the price of feed and the effect usually takes some time to show. The Ukraine war pushed feed prices up to record highs in 2022 and many famers - not only in Bulgaria - destroyed many animals, causing a shortage in supply and pushing up prices. "About a year later we feel this effect," Iliev explained.

In a pendulum effect, farmers are now increasing their herds and prices are expected to drop about an year from now. "That is the usual cycle in this business," Iliev said.

Just like the Minister, Iliev was adamant that there is no speculative pricing "because the Bulgarian market is open and depends on what is happening in Europe, from where the bulk of pork imports to Bulgaria come". 

According to Agriculture Ministry statistics, 60% of the pork in Bulgaria is imported and the rest is locally produced. In the poultry sector, half is imported and half is locally produced.

Petko Petkov, who is a member of the Association of Meat Processors, pointed out that there is no big difference in the price of pork in Bulgaria and in other EU countries. Whatever difference there is, is due to the smaller size of farms in Bulgaria and the lower or zero VAT in in some European countries. The price of pork in Bulgaria is BGN 7.30/kg after VAT, Petkov added.

Minister Vatev, Tsvetan Iliev and Petko Petkov spoke to the press after a meeting of an advisory board on pork. 

The meeting sought to map out measures to increase supply of Bulgarian products, including meat, meat products and eggs on the Bulgarian market, and improve the interaction between the participants in the agri-food chain from the farm to the supermarket shelves, the Minister said.

The participants in the Council were united around the need to increase the population of all farm animals in Bulgaria to at least partially reach the levels of years ago, when this country exported both live animals and processed products. The expectation is that the advisory board will find the necessary formula for this, based also on good European practices, and the results are expected to make themselves felt a year from now, according to the participants in the meeting.

The Chairman of the Association of Industrial Poultry Farming, Daniel Bozhankov, welcomed Minister Vatev's ideas about closer cooperation between all players along the food chain and said that the poultry sector is already working in this direction. The future of the Bulgarian farmer is in cooperation and in providing better quality produce to the consumer, and this can only be achieved by pooling the costs of producers and improving the quality of what is produced, following the example of other European countries, Bozhankov said.

He said that after the Easter spike in egg prices, a downward trend is observed now caused by overproduction. He said domestic demand for poultry and eggs is now fully met.

This was the fourth meeting of an advisory board in agriculture after last week's meetings in the sectors of farm land, dairy, fruit and vegetables. The meetings were attended by the government, branch organizations of farmers and scientists.