Serbian Pork Prices Rise Up to 15%, Hit 920 Dinars a Kilo

The price of fattening pigs in Serbia has climbed to 220 to 230 dinars per kilogram of live weight, excluding value added tax, nearly double the 140 to 160 dinars it stood at before African swine fever broke out in late July. Fresh pork at the butcher has risen 10 to 15 percent over the same period, according to prices gathered in Novi Sad.

A kilogram of ham now costs 795 to 920 dinars at Novi Sad butcher shops, pork loin runs 560 to 870 dinars, neck cuts go for 735 to 850 dinars, and fresh meat destined for cured products costs 600 to 790 dinars. Meat from young pigs sells for around 850 dinars a kilogram. Consumers barely noticed the increase over the summer, since pork traditionally sells less in hot weather.

Sanja Celebicanin of the Serbian Pig Breeders Association says a balance has finally been restored in the production chain after months of losses:

We have finally reached a point where everyone in the production chain is satisfied. During the period when a large share of pigs were infected with the fever, and well before that too, only breeders were recording losses. At a live weight price of 140 to 160 dinars without VAT, they could not cover the cost of fattening. Now prices have reached a balance where no one in the production cycle operates at a loss, and buyers are not paying for it either.

While the live weight price has finally covered breeders’ costs, another link in the chain, piglet fattening, is now running at a loss. The fattening ban remains in place in infected areas and within a ten-kilometer radius around them, so neither domestic nor imported piglets can be bought. A 25-kilogram piglet now costs barely 6,000 dinars, and the farms of the largest producers in Srem, in Lacarak, Martinci and Kuzmin, have been left empty of new stock. A livestock farmer from the area described the situation to the newspaper Dnevnik:

The ban on fattening is still in force because of the pig disease in the infected areas and the surrounding zone, within a ten-kilometer radius. You cannot buy a piglet, domestic or imported, even though new stock is essential for starting a new production cycle. That is why piglets are cheap, and breeders who fatten sows are selling piglets at a loss.

According to Celebicanin, new pigs from domestic farms, averaging around 120 kilograms, should reach the slaughter line within about ten days. “It is estimated that slaughterhouses will be supplied with around 15,000 head a week,” she said. She added that Serbia imported around 36,000 tons of frozen pork for the processing industry in 2025, well below the 50,000 tons imported in 2024. In July 2026 alone, about 2,000 tons of frozen meat arrived from abroad.

The disruption traces back to African swine fever, registered in late July, which has killed or led to the culling of more than 36,000 animals. Vladimir Nikolic, acting director of the Forestry Directorate, said the disease is present, according to the latest count, in seven districts, 13 municipalities and 62 settlements, with the highest risk in the Srem, Macva and Kolubara districts as well as the Belgrade area. He said the situation is moving in the right direction, though there is no room for complacency:

It is encouraging that in recent days we have been recording fewer and fewer new infection cases, and we expect that trend to continue. Still, there is no room for easing up.

The scale of the outbreak among wild boar populations was confirmed by Branislav Stankov, executive director for hunting at the public company Vojvodinasume, who said African swine fever has been registered in 16 of the 17 hunting grounds the company manages. The only hunting ground with no confirmed case is at the northern tip of Vojvodina, in the Subotica Forests area.

On the processing side, Zoran Matijevic of the Matijevic Meat Industry believes pork prices have effectively hit a ceiling and there is no room for further increases, largely because of competition from major retail chains. He says the supply of fattening pigs is currently solid, and imports are now almost entirely limited to meat used for processing. “Imports only cover the meat needed for processing,” he said.

Breeders and processors therefore agree that the market is entering a stabilization phase after the August shock: the live weight price is holding at a level that covers fattening costs, imports of frozen meat are down for a second year running, and new deliveries from domestic farms should ease the supply chain shortage created by the fattening ban within the next ten days or so. How long the ban will remain in force in the infected areas is still an open question, and the answer will decide when farms in Srem can restock with new piglets.