February 6, 2023

Belgium's FEBEV in cooperation to integrate pork indexes

Belgium's Federation of Belgian Meat (FEBEV) and Fenavian (the federation of meat products manufacturers) are cooperating to integrate their pork indexes.

A combined index is expected to deliver a better representation of market evolution and thus contribute to greater transparency in Belgium's pig sector.

The country's pig chain has been under pressure for some time as a result of the various crises that have occurred in recent years. To increase the sector's resilience, FEBEV and Fenavian have decided to integrate the existing systems —the Meatindex and the Vindex — that reflect market fluctuations.

In terms of transparency, the pork sector has already had to take more steps this year. Starting this year, FEBEV has also communicated the sales prices of cuts to the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. These figures are then published on the department's website. This mandatory communication is part of a European regulation that aims for more transparency in the agri-food chain.

This communication of sales prices takes place via the Meatindex, FEBEV's data system. This data exchange with the Belgian government was not the only challenge for FEBEV. The integration with Vindex was also a long-running process that took two years to complete. Both platforms will continue to exist in their own right, but the processing itself is now done in a closed unit that automatically sends the processed data back to both platforms.

By bringing together the data from the platforms, both the price fluctuations from the purchase side (buyers in Belgium, such as retail and meat processing) and the production side (suppliers in Belgium, such as cutting plants) are taken into account.

- Vilt (Belgium)