Economy

What Will Happen to Pork Prices This Fall: Analysts’ Forecast

Forecast

Pork prices on Ukraine’s domestic market have remained stable, even though imports of this product have risen significantly. Currently, pork in Ukraine is sometimes more expensive than in Poland or Romania. As Mykola Babenko, executive director of the Meat Industry Association, explained in a comment to "Komersant Ukrainian", the reason is an unusual situation regarding pork.

As the expert notes, despite the fact that prices for all types of meat are setting new records, pork—which is a global trend—is, on the contrary, falling in price. And this is happening both in the European Union and in Asian markets. This is all linked to the notorious African swine fever. However, its impact on the business economy differs between the pig farming sectors in the European Union and in Ukraine.

“In the European Union, since it is the world’s largest trader—accounting for 50% of global pork trade—the requirements for trading partners are the highest. One of the criteria is that African swine fever must be absent in the countries that export the most, in principle—not to mention in the wild or among domestic pigs on farms. And it was Spain—which, among EU countries, had increased its pork exports to a world record—that faced a resurgence of African swine fever outbreaks in the wild on November 28, 2025. “This dealt a devastating blow to the pork industry across all of Europe, including Ukraine,” the expert explains.

According to him, prices suddenly dropped at the end of 2025 and have continued to decline even to this day. To address the problem, Europeans are seeking solutions and alternative markets. Ukraine has become one such market, particularly for Spanish pork.

“The audit was successfully completed. The Ukrainian Veterinary Service has granted permission to import pork from Spain into Ukraine. This helps relieve some pressure on the European market. Although Ukraine is a small consumer, the pressure from lower prices is being felt,” explains Babenko.

As for the current situation in the European Union, Babenko continues, pig farming there is now operating below the break-even point.

“In other words, European pig farmers are incurring losses of 10 to 30 euro cents per kilogram due to this ASF outbreak in Spain. They’re selling their products for less than it cost to raise them. Although last year—the 25th year overall for the industry—was very profitable across all European Union countries. And it can be called one of the best years for the pig farming industry,” says the expert.

Meanwhile, according to him, prices for live hogs in Ukraine are falling under pressure from imports, primarily from retail chains, which are currently major consumers and importers of pork. This is because, in order to compete with imported meat, Ukrainian meat-processing companies are forced to lower their prices so that the price of domestically produced pork on the domestic market is comparable to the price of imports. Currently, the price stands at 65 hryvnias.

“As for prices in stores: prices for pork in European stores—and especially in Poland, which is closest to us—are significantly lower. The price is practically 50% lower, ranging from 100 to 110 hryvnias per kilogram. This is the retail price. One of the reasons is that the market there is more competitive than the Ukrainian one. And the existence of a large monopoly among retail chains in Ukraine allows them to earn significantly higher profits than in European Union countries.”

Babenko explains that in Ukraine, there are only a few retail chains, and they import a significant portion of their pork.

“And second, there’s the lower VAT rate. In Ukraine, it remains at 20%, while in Poland it’s 5%. This also reduces the burden on consumers’ purchasing power to some extent. As for prices, they will most likely not recover by the end of the year. That is, they will remain within the current range—for pork, somewhere around 150 hryvnias or more. “There may be a decrease due to an increase in the share of imports and because domestic producers will be forced to sell their pigs at lower prices,” says Babenko.

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Babenko notes that, overall, the situation is threatening for the industry.

“Because the outbreak in Catalonia—where the first one in Spain occurred for unknown reasons—took place in an area with no neighboring regions at risk of African swine fever. The outbreak involved the same genotype of the African swine fever virus as the one found in Ukraine. This has been definitively confirmed, because even one of the scenarios or possible routes of virus transmission was that it could have come from a laboratory in Spain—also located in Catalonia—that works with this strain of the virus to develop a vaccine against African swine fever,” says Babenko.

According to the expert, it has not yet been confirmed that this was specifically due to negligence in the laboratory, but questions remain. And given the great distance, and given that the European Union has a significantly higher density of pigs, the risks remain very high.

“That is, a red alert level applies to countries with a high concentration of pigs, such as Belgium, which is about the same size as a single region of Ukraine but keeps four times as many pigs on its pig farms as Ukraine did across its 24 regions before the war. The same applies to the Netherlands and Denmark—that is, these three countries are all major exporters after Spain, ranking 4th, 5th, and 6th, respectively, in the global pork trade rankings. And the emergence of this virus—from which no one is immune—could trigger a new wave of falling prices.”

And according to Babenko, prices could fall significantly below even the levels currently seen in the market.

Pork Prices in Supermarkets

According to the Ministry of Finance’s website, the current prices (averages and by store) for pork are as follows:

According to data from the State Customs Service, Ukraine imported 18,000 metric tons of pork from January through June 2026, which is 4.3 times more than during the same period last year.

In monetary terms, imports for the first half of this year totaled $43.4 million—2.4 times more than during the same period in 2025.

From January through June of this year, pork was imported primarily from Denmark (50.5%), Germany (20.2%), and Poland (17.7%).

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