This week: It is difficult to provide a truly accurate reflection of the market and prices. From a purely theoretical and analytical point of view, the situation is relatively clear. The only problem is that this is not reflected in regular price reports. In the absence of sufficiently reliable transactions and, above all, sufficient volume, the reports and the price reports have not been a true reflection of the current market for some time.

Since mid-September at the latest, at least in Europe, there have only been deals based on the regular delivery programmes for fresh produce. Since these usually run for at least four weeks, there is no real new price development and past prices keep their value until there is a new one. Of course, this distorts the real situation, and not insignificantly.

This is also due to the lack of active exports to Asia. When there is enough material on the market, the export business is active. Then, yes, there are new prices several times a week and a dynamic market. Consequently, this means for the current situation that reports, and this also applies to ours, as well as price quotations bear no real relation to the current market situation. This is a pity, but there are no great alternatives. No trade, no price and individual random sales cannot be used as a reference for the general market situation.

We currently have more of a demand problem than a real price problem. In particular, the considerably reduced purchases by the automotive industry are putting a strain on production in the supply chain. Too little leather is being called off, and presently that has nothing to do with demand or prices. While the mood in the other sectors was still positive until mid-September, there is now a lack of orders to confirm this. The reasons are many. This is all the worse because we are now in the period in which production activity is normally at its highest. This means that the material flow in the supply chain has slowed down considerably. In addition, prices in other regions have already fallen significantly, which does not exactly support the competitiveness of European hides.

Business this week has been correspondingly slow. There are no new prices yet, individual sales in Asia cannot be considered representative and everyone is now waiting with bated breath for the next abattoir negotiations at the beginning of November. Effective business this week was again concentrated either on coincidences or on a wide variety of niche items that do not represent a market reference.

The kill: The kill fell back a little this week. The extremely high purchase prices for livestock, production problems in the slaughterhouses and sluggish business in the food retail sector weighed on the situation. There is hardly any way out of this vicious circle for the time being and so, perhaps, only a change in the weather can bring a little more dynamism.

What we expect: For the moment, we do not know what can stop the price pressure in the coming weeks. In our view, the main problem is that many European hides are currently not competitive in terms of price, and this at a time when production in China is already burdened by energy shortages and logistical problems. Once again, we have failed to adapt to the market realities in time and this always causes delays. We still enjoy the privilege of quality in Europe, so if we are realistic in our pricing, there will be considerably fewer problems.

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