Market Report 11.07.2025

What happened this week

It would probably be better if there were Olympic Games or a World Cup this year. Then many people would probably have an interesting daily routine and something worth talking about the next day. This is probably not the case for the hide and skin market at the moment, at least not for us. There are still no really new and convincing developments, and somehow one gets the feeling that everything has already been said, discussed and analysed. As was the case last week, one gets the feeling that although most people are still in the factories and offices, all activities are actually focused internally rather than externally. In any case, raw material procurement is by no means the focus of attention. This may also have a lot to do with the fact that the largest market, China still remains closed to us. Last Wednesday marked six months since we had the first and only case of foot-and-mouth disease in Germany. While the flow of goods to almost all other markets is back to normal, nothing is happening on the part of the Chinese authorities. As annoying as the fact that exports are still not possible is, it is even more annoying that it has not yet been possible to obtain any reliable information from the Chinese authorities as to when they actually intend to deal with the matter, what criteria they will apply and when a possible release will be possible again. This makes planning very difficult, and exports to China have always been and continue to be relatively important for the months of July and August. During this period, European customers are on summer holiday. As a result, many are focusing on sales of the lighter and lower-priced categories for protein production, but here too, the closure of leather factories for the summer holidays is playing a major role. Otherwise, the discussion revolves around the question and arguments of what will happen after the holidays. For the next few weeks, kill numbers will remain at its annual low, so the pressure from the supply of goods will ease somewhat. However, as we all know, this will change again from mid-September at the latest. Of course, the leather factories will then resume production, which leaves us with the key question of whether there will actually be a real and sustainable recovery in leather demand and orders for our customers. The optimists, who are not very numerous at the moment, assume that stocks in the leather processing industry will be too low and that this will trigger a significant recovery. The others anticipate a rather sluggish recovery, which will then be accompanied by rising slaughter rates. We now have a few weeks ahead of us to think about this calmly, and it may be advisable to also consider the current business situation of all parties involved. Not much happened in terms of business last week either. Everyone has come to terms with the fact that major price changes are not to be expected without this having any relevance to the real market situation.