What happened this week: Except for the Mediterranean countries,  this week most of our regular clients were back at their desks. Most of them are producing side leathers and we were quite surprised by the volume of interest we had.

With many of the clients, initial businesses were already concluded during the last weeks and also some of the program buyers from the furniture and car upholstery segment were in for the normal purchasing programs. Altogether these sales added up to quite decent sales figures and numbers had been above expectation for the week.

The overseas customer base which kept us busy in the previous weeks was very quiet this week and no inquiries or business was noticed. Not too much of a surprise, as we believed already that the volume of sales beginning August was enough for some time. Under normal circumstances we expect our regular overseas customers to be back before mid September, and this could be interesting as this should also be the time Italian customers should formulate their purchasing strategies for October/November. Also, other markets were quiet and countries like India, for example, are late again in opening letters of credit.

So in general the week can be summarized by decent business in bullhides while the rest of the market was seasonally quiet. Apart from the general trade we were interested to hear about a tight financial situation of a smaller hide processor. This is both surprising and expected, considering the high price levels over the past months and the losses the trade had to bear due to unacceptable price levels at the abattoirs since April. One has now to wait for another week or so to see how serious the situation is and if it can still be sorted out.

The kill: Still steady, but we expect the kill now slowly to pick up as well as the hide weights. It is still unclear if and eventually how the floods and their damages are going to influence the kill and the consumption of beef in Germany.

What do we expect? The next week to two weeks will give us more information about the market situation. We think that the furniture business will still be uncertain, with many important fairs ahead of us. Car upholsrtery as well as high quality leather productions should pick up more quickly and more regularly. However, the general economical outlook is still not extremely bright and, as far as Germany is concerned, we have to see how far the cost of the floods and the elections are going to paralyse the markets for the next weeks. As far as prices are concerned, German prices for the moment are competitive and the firmer markets overseas and the weaker € are supporting the market for the time being.