Domestic meat industry in a market turmoil

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2025/12-2026.01

Tamás Éder
president
Hungarian Meat Industry
Federation

One of the most important questions for the coming years is who will be able to strengthen their positions in the longer term in a changing competitive environment.

Limited improvement

In the Hungarian meat industry we have seen a mixed picture recently: meat processing and meat products both experienced moderate growth in 2024, with meat processing volumes increasing by 6% and meat product volumes by 10%. However, this wasn’t enough to compensate for the very sharp decline in 2023. In the first half of 2025 slaughtering and meat production grew by approximately 3%, while meat product manufacturing essentially stagnated.

“There was very little room for manoeuvre to deal with unexpected market changes”,

points out Tamás Éder, president of the Hungarian Meat Industry Federation.

A korábbi évek történelmi csúcsaiból fakadó költségnyomást nem minden vállalat tudta érvényesíteni a kereskedelmi átadási árakban

Under double pressure

Hungarian pork exports dropped 7% in the first half of 2025. One reason for this was that between March and June restrictions were put in place for animal health reasons, which temporarily closed the markets of some EU countries to Hungarian pork and effectively halted exports to third countries. Meanwhile, a supply surplus has developed on the European market. China has increased its own pork production in recent years, reducing its demand for imports from the EU. Production costs continue to grow and larger, more stable companies can take advantage of development opportunities more easily, while some medium-sized companies are in a difficult financial situation. This is expected to accelerate the structural reorganisation of the sector.