Europe’s pig slaughter continues a modest increase
The 27 member states of the European Union slaughtered 227 million pigs in the whole of 2025. That is an increase of over 5 million pigs when compared to 2024 (222 million).
The trend can be viewed when comparing the latest production figures as supplied by the European Commission.
The moderately positive development continues to partially offset the consequences of a free fall which occurred in 2022 and 2023, when pig supplies fell sharply for 2 years in a row. In those years, total amount of slaughtered pigs went from 249 million down to 220 million. Main drivers of the decline were the crisis related to Covid-19 as well as the presence of African Swine Fever (ASF) in Germany.
Largest pig producer in Europe
The largest producer is Spain, with over 56 million pigs slaughtered in 2025. Spanish production has been growing steadily; in 2024 the levels were below 54 million pigs.
Pig producing country number #2, Germany, slaughtered nearly 45 million pigs in 2025. That country has witnessed a significant decline, as back in 2016, the country still produced 59.39 million pigs. One of the ongoing developments in Germany is the development of stricter welfare legislation with regard to mating stalls as well as free farrowing housing, causing many sow producers to stop.
Numbers 3 and 4 on the list are France and Poland, respectively. These countries slaughter about 20 million pigs annually. French production, in particular, has remained fairly constant over the years.
Supply continues to grow
In the most recent analysis of the pig market, agribusiness bank Rabobank said that it expects EU pig supply in the 1st half of 2026 to be higher than a year earlier. In the 2nd half of the year, production could possibly come down due to a smaller pig supply in Spain.
One of the reasons of a potential reduction of Spain’s production numbers could be related to the recent discovery of ASF in Spain’s wild boar population. Even though it has not emerged in the country’s domestic pig population, the consequences of having the virus in Spain means the pork export opportunities to third countries have been somewhat limited.
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