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AHDB PORK
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) is a statutory levy board funded by farmers, growers and others in the supply chain to help the industry succeed in a rapidly changing world. We want to create a world-class food and farming industry, inspired by and competing with the best.
We work with the whole supply chain to help us unify the industry, bridge gaps in knowledge and encourage collaboration to build a stronger future for everyone.
Our priorities for pork
Traditionally, the English pig sector has adapted quickly to make the most of change. In recent years, our pig meat has been exported to almost 100 countries, and the industry has responded positively to shifting consumer trends in the home market. However, the agility of the sector will continue to be tested as we progressively become more exposed to global competition.
As a result, we face the following challenges: • How can we sell every part of the pig for the best return at home or overseas? • How do we continue to protect the reputation of pork and promote its benefits to consumers? • How do we continue to improve animal health and welfare, and reduce our impact on the environment? • How can we improve production efficiency in a way that supports the reputation of British pork, while remaining competitive at home and overseas?
The opportunities and challenges these questions raise cannot always be addressed by individual producers or processors acting alone. However, funded by your levy, we support the industry to position itself to both survive tough times and thrive when circumstances allow.
Selling every part of the pig
We invest over £19m every year in marketing and export development to ensure that pork appeals to modern, busy households in the UK and appears on menus and in supermarkets around the world.
We have representatives in key international markets who coordinate and lead our in-country export activity. This has proved hugely valuable >>
>> given recent travel restrictions.
We host British exporters at international trade fairs – providing them with an important platform to meet potential clients, develop existing relationships and showcase the best of British products to a global audience.
Consumer marketing activities such as the midweek meals campaign, which is now in its fifth year, support the industry by encouraging a positive attitude towards pork. Demonstrating pork’s versatility, taste, leanness and value ensures it maintains relevancy to modern consumers and drives sales.
Independent evaluation of the midweek meals pork marketing campaign, which ran from October 2020 to January 2021, shows it reached more than 85% of UK households, with consumers’ desire to buy pork at its highest level in three years. A further burst of the campaign was run in October 2021 highlighting the great taste and versatility of pork shoulder to make delicious pulled pork. A pork medallion campaign is planned for January 2022, which will focus on the leanness of the cut.
Our We Eat Balanced campaign has proved successful and is being repeated in January 2022. The campaign, which includes a new TV advert, will educate consumers on the sustainability aspects of British farming, and the nutrients found in pork – particularly vitamin B12.
In addition to our work to help influence consumer attitudes and perceptions around pork, we also support industry initiatives to help connect consumers with the farming sector and ensure that young audiences are well informed about where food comes from.
Animal health and welfare, and the environment
We provide a wide variety of support services and tools to help all producers breed and rear animals in optimal conditions. We also work closely with other organisations such as the British Pig Association (BPA), the National Pig Association (NPA) and the Pig Veterinary Society (PVS) to ensure that, wherever possible, we can offer producers a holistic approach to managing animal health on farm. • Electronic medicine book for pigs (eMB): Our pioneering digital platform has recorded a 60% reduction in the use of antibiotics across 94% of finished pigs since its introduction in 2016 • Pig Hub: Pig Hub is a single pig industry portal for all producers, which provides an accurate database for the industry, recording changes on individual pig units The environment is also a growing concern
among consumers, policymakers and farmers. Our Environment team is active in major groups and decision making both domestically and globally. • Ammonia emissions: Our ammonia monitoring trial demonstrated that the British pig industry is successfully reducing ammonia emissions. The results, which were welcomed by the Environment Agency, finally enable the industry to firmly demonstrate compliance and best practice, saving producers an estimated £15.3m from environmental mitigation costs • Slurry cooling: Slurry cooling is reported to reduce ammonia emissions by up to 75%, and the heat extracted can be used to heat livestock housing, reducing energy and heating costs. We have created a dedicated slurry cooling hub to equip pig producers with the correct resources, guidance, and tools to understand the options available for implementing slurry cooling on a farm
Supporting you and your business
Farmer-to-farmer learning: Our Farm Excellence programme is about making real change on farm through a wide-reaching platform of activity that allows farmers and producers to learn from one of their most trusted sources – each other
We have two types of host farms, which differ slightly in what they cover: • Strategic Farms focus on delivering improvements to individual, technical areas of running a farm (e.g. water quality and quantity) • Monitor Farms focus on improving overall business performance and generally concern the whole farm (e.g. SmartPork and Lean Management)
Our Retail and Consumer Insight teams work to understand the needs of modern food consumers and how their attitudes towards cooking, buying and eating influence the whole supply chain. Our findings and insights are available to farmers, retailers and processors to ensure that our domestic food industries can strive to be world-class. • Pork Talk: Our monthly videos are just one example of the regular market updates we provide, which analyse the latest developments for pig meat markets both at home and across the globe • Farm input outlook: The Farm Input Overview publication gives an insight into recent trends in the farm inputs and feed, together with an outlook for animal feed ingredients • UK pig meat outlook: Our pig market outlook publications provide insights into trends across the pig sector, together with our latest production and trade forecasts
Our training courses are open to pig unit staff across the country. There are a range of ways for people to train, for example, through online webinars and face-to-face workshops: • Principles of pig production: Our webinar series, aimed at new entrants to the industry as well as those who want to refresh their knowledge, is an extremely popular series giving an overview of best practice through the different stages of pork production
Contacts
• The AHDB pork team contact details can be found at ahdb.org.uk/meet-the-team-pork • PigHub and eAML2: pighub@ahdb.org.uk • Visit our website: ahdb.org.uk/pork
