Pork producers from the United Kingdom are making a killing in China as the raging African Swine Fever (ASF) ravaging China's pig population has boosted demand for British pork to unheard of heights.
In the first eight months of 2019, the UK shipped more than 45,000 metric tons of pork to China, or almost double the total volume for 2018. This huge spike in demand has made China the UK's biggest pork customer. Tulips Fresh Meats Ltd., the UK's largest pig farming business and buyer of slaughter pigs, is reporting an 80 percent jump in China sales year-on-year.
Huge Chinese demand growth has been a happy fact of life for Tulip since August 2018, said Andrew Saunders, the company's Agricultural Director. He also said China has seen a 25 percent reduction of its domestic pork production due to ASF. He believes high prices will likely persist.
"We expect this to continue into 2020," he said.
Tulip generates more than $1.34 billion in total revenue each year. For China, Tulip primarily exports pig heads, trotters, hind feet, offal. belly, back and shoulder. ASF was first detected in China in August 2018. This pig disease is incurable and has triggered a series of mass pig culls in China.
Cranswick PLC, another leading UK producer of fresh pork, reported a 7.1% jump in six-month revenue. It said this improvement was underpinned by a very strong performance in its Far East export markets, specifically China. Cranswick noted ASF in its Asian export markets has created the opportunity to increase sales into this region on commercially favorable terms.
In late November, Cranswick said it has nearly doubled revenues in its pork exports to its Asian arm, driven by the widespread ASF outbreak. It said its export revenues of pork to the Asia jumped 94% in the six months to September 30.
CEO Adam Couch said the company is sending about 100 lorries worth of pig meat to Asia every week on containers from ports such as Felixstowe and Southampton.
"Demand has kept growing and we don't see that slowing," he pointed out.
Chinese pork demand typically peaks in late January during the celebration of the Lunar New Year, which arrives on Jan. 20, 2020. There are fears China won't have enough pig meat to satisfy demand in 2020.
China has grown rapidly to become the UK's biggest customer of pigmeat. Pigmeat exports to China from January to August were worth $124 million, more than twice the value year-on-year. In the same time frame, offal exports have increased by 30% to nearly 32,000 metric tonnes.
