What happened this week: We could not have been more correct in our last weeks view on the market. While the activity in bullhides was very limited with almost everything being set and done for the coming weeks, we had another larger round of interest from overseas customers for lighter weight dairy cows. So, was our expectation for more activity in the dairy cow market this week fully confirmed. Buyers started to sniff around and to bid well below asking levels. With bids being refused buyers confirmed at the end on Thursday and Friday asking levels. The weaker € assisted calculations, so that the final revenues where well above what we expected some weeks ago and

prices are now in line with the quotations for the equivalent material from the USA. However, to avoid misunderstandings: The present level is still well below the present abattoir prices and they need still an adjustment of 25-30 % to get in line with the present market levels. Apart from this sales were limited and only very small numbers changed hands for delivery in September. The main interest was for light weight material from shoe upper tanners. Interesting outside the hide business was renewed interest for lambskins from Turkey where things seem to settle a bit after the uncertainties of the past weeks. Except this it was as quiet as one could expect from a week at the end of July. The kill: The

hormone scandal did not affect the kill negatively. So the level remains low on the normal seasonal levels. Hide weights have slightly gone up again and we hope, that the worst is behind us. The next three weeks are still school holidays in the North and so everything will remain unchanged. What do we expect? Not really very much again. We are just watching now, if the interest for cows continues. We feel, that there is more interest and not too many hides available at the moment. If tanners need many more cows in the next weeks, then they are not anymore readily waiting for them. So prices will not move very much, but an attempt to raise cow prices would not surprise taking also the poor margins into consideration.