German Perspective - 08.09.15
08/09/2015
Serious conflicts between buyers and sellers, which sometimes became pretty noisy, were heard, as were serious and professional discussions about business. However, general consensus was that we have to be prepared for more difficulties ahead in China with the short-term recovery not in sight. European suppliers might still feel the least of the pain, because most of our products are in the medium- and higher-quality range. The biggest trouble was that prices were facing substantial pressure and clearance was still not good enough to make suppliers happy and to clear the air.
For European suppliers it was definitely not one of the most successful shows ever, but we tend to have the impression that by adjusting price levels still a reasonable amount of hides could be sold; we were not really seeing totally disappointed faces within the suppliers from Europe. They couldn’t be too disappointed because the expectations were not running high.
How far the price concessions have had to go is really difficult to say because it depends pretty much on which price level people were coming from after the last deals. For the main product, which is still dairy cows, we heard of substantial reductions in the range of $5-$7, but also of very moderate ones in the range of a dollar or so. Within the European supplier community there was a general consensus that we have to consider further price declines. If there is anything positive in the situation in the past weeks and months, it is that the price declines we have faced have come in continuous steps rather than in one big slump all of a sudden. One can only hope that we are able to continue this until the weaker price cycle and the correction roll out eventually.
Sales in our case have been reasonably moderate, and at least things moved. Most of it was dairy cows while the interest for males was pretty negligible, despite the moderate upswing in prices in dollars. In our case we got away with moderate price declines for dairy cows and one has to be prepared for that trend to continue and for customers to ask for their share when it comes to the next round of discussions.
The kill: Cattle slaughter is finally getting better with the end of the school holidays, but it’s still too early to have a clear picture of production for the rest of September. Generally we believe that the kill is going to increase further and we will have good numbers for the rest of the year.
What we expect: The trend continues to be lower and now European tanners will ask for corrections to the levels they saw before their summer holidays.
| Type | Weight range | Avg. green weight | Salted weight | Avg. weight salted | Price per kg green weight | Trend |
| Ox/heifers | 15/24,5 kg | 22,0/23,5 kg | 13/22 kg | 20/21 kg | € 2,30 |
Weakish |
| 25/29,5 kg | 27,5/28,5 kg | 22/27 kg | 25/26 kg | € 2.00 |
Steady |
|
|
Dairy cows |
15/24,5 kg |
22,5/23,5 kg |
13/22 kg |
20/21 kg |
€ 2.00 |
Weakish |
|
25/29,5 kg |
27,5/28,5 kg |
22/27 kg |
25/26 kg |
€ 1,75 |
Steady | |
|
30/+ kg |
33,5/35,5 kg |
27/+ kg |
29/31 kg |
€ 1,65 |
Steady | |
| Bulls | 25/29,5 kg | 27,5/28,5 kg | 22/ 27 kg | 25/26 kg | € 2,10 |
Weaker |
| 30/39,5 kg | 36,0/37,0 kg | 24/34 kg | 31/33 kg | € 2,05 |
Steady |
|
| 40/+ kg | 45,0/48,0 kg | 34/+ kg | 38/40 kg | € 1.90 |
Steady |
|
| Thirds | 15/+ kg | 25,0/27,5 kg | 13/+ kg | 24/26 kg | € 1,50 |
Steady |
| Thirds bulls | 30/+ kg | 38,0/40,0 kg | 24/+ kg | 33/36 kg | € 1.50 |
Soft |
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