Market difficulties dominate BPPF 2026 Outlook discussion

The difficult market situation, including moves by major pork processors to reduce current pig supplies, dominated discussion at the BPPF Outlook Forums.

Producers across the country have been given notice by processors over the past few months, typically coming into effect in six or 12 months’ time. In some cases, producers are being dropped altogether, while in others, numbers are being reduced.

NPA chief executive Lizzie Wilson gave her views on this and other hot industry topics, alongside Pilgrim’s Europe’s operations director agriculture Fabio Brancher and Ellie Wotherspoon, McDonald’s agriculture and sustainable sourcing manager.

She said it was impossible to gauge how it will play out in six to 12 months time when the contract decisions start to take effect.

“Will supply have tightened enough and will demand have gone up enough? We may have lost some producers and others may have reduced herd size. It might be that, actually, some of these contracts will be renewed, and we’ll find ourselves in a better position – or will it be carnage?” she said.

“I really don’t know. It has been an unfortunate sequence of events, especially with this August deadline coming up with regards to contractual practice.

“So, I’d say to producers, ensure that your processors are contacting you with regards to your contract because it needs to be reviewed and negotiated by that August deadline. I know that that isn’t great timing at the moment, but they are legally obliged to do that.”

Lizzie said there was little evidence contract terms are being breached by processors, but she urged any producers to who have concerns to contact the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator, who was at the show on Wednesday.

Reducing the backlog

Mr Brancher set out what Pilgrim’s has been doing to address the problem, including putting on nine extra Saturday kills and, in the past fortnight or so, killing for an extra 30 minutes each day. He said the company slaughtered a record 48,000 pigs in its abattoirs last week, compared with a typical 43,000 head.

“We are trying to reduce this backlog,” he said. “We are doing a good job together with the farmers, not only our internal farmers, but also the third-party farmers from the marketing company, to try to mitigate this issue.

“We are trying to hold more pigs on our farms to reduce the problem for the third parties and to put more pigs in our abattoirs.”

Stressing that it was an industry-wide problem, he highlighted the impact of low European prices and ‘too many pigs’ being in the system, after producers across the sector increased sow numbers. He said Pilgrim’s factory problem in the autumn was not a breakdown, but ‘an investment that didn’t work very well’ that resulted in a two-week hiatus at the plant, adding that it had not experienced any factory issues for a number of months.

He said the current situation was ‘not good for the British industry’. “I totally understand – it is not good for farmers, it is not good for us and it’s not good for the customers. He said Pilgrim’s was putting carcases in stores and sometimes selling some of the pigmeat for low prices.

He said he could not promise that the backlog will be resolved ‘fast’, but predicted Pilgrim’s will be able to address it ‘in a few months’.

The company is working hard to ensure all contracts are compliant with the regulation by the August 13 deadline, with ‘92 to 93%’ of the company’s third-party farmers having signed the new contract. “We have had a discussion with our legal and compliance team to put our everything in place to be fair to the contractor, to us and for the farmer,” he said.

• You can view the forums from BPPF 2026 HERE.