Czech beef and poultry production growing despite rising imports

26-Sep-2016 - Last updated on 27-Sep-2016 at 11:31 GMT

The Czech Republic is importing most of its beef from Poland and Hungary

The Czech Republic’s beef and poultry meat production is on the rise, but its meat market remains dominated by imports from EU member states, according to the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO).

In the second quarter of 2016, local meat industry players reported beef meat production of 17,973 tonnes (t), an increase of 7.4% compared with the same period a year earlier, and a poultry meat output of 39,137t, up 0.5% compared with the April-June 2015 period. The only meat category which did not post improved results was pork meat, with a quarterly output of 57,527t, a decrease of 0.7% compared with the same period a year earlier.

Imports dominate market

Despite the increase in the domestic production, the Czech market remains largely dependent on imports of meat, mostly from other European Union member states, as indicated by figures from the state-run office.

In the second quarter of 2016, the Czech Republic imported a total of 63,081t of pork meat, down 0.5% compared with the same period a year earlier, the CZSO said in its market analysis. The imports were mainly from Germany, Spain and Poland. Czech meat industry players managed to export some 9,282t of pork meat, mostly to neighbouring Slovakia.

Imports of poultry meat rose by 3.9% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2016, with 29,105t bought mainly from Poland and Hungary, and, to a lesser extent, from Brazil. The Czech Republic’s poultry meat exports were mainly intended for the neighbouring Slovak market.

“[In the second quarter of 2016], beef was imported mostly from Poland, the Netherlands and Slovakia; it was exported mainly to Slovakia but also to Hungary and the Netherlands,” according to the Czech office.

In the April-June 2016 period, the Czech Republic imported a total of 7,438t of beef meat, up 17% year-on-year, and exported 2,708t, an increase of 20% compared with the second quarter of 2015.

Cattle livestock on the rise

The latest available data from the CZSO indicated that the country’s livestock structure has been adapting to the production of local meat processing facilities. As pork meat processing decreased by 0.7% in the second quarter of 2016, Czech breeders reported 1.559m head as of last April, down from 1.617m head in the same month a year earlier.

Meanwhile, as beef meat processing was up by 7.4% in the April-June 2016 period, the country’s cattle livestock was up from 1.374m head in April 2015 to 1.407m head last April, as indicated by data from the state-run office. In the same period, sheep livestock inched up from some 225,397 head to 231,694 head.

The decrease reported in the pig segment is even more evident when this figure is compared with 2009, when the Czech Republic’s pig livestock totalled some 1.971m head.

Based in the country’s capital Prague, the CZSO was set up in 1969.