I PREZZI 2013

[Autom. eng. transl.] On the main Italian markets, the positive trend in the prices of beef and veal products in the previous year was confirmed in 2012. The state of depression that had characterized the markets at the end of the first decade of the 2000s seems now behind us and at the end of the year most of the prices stood several percentage points above the average of 2010. Despite the recovery of the price lists, however, the farmers meet still serious difficulties in survival, it is no coincidence that the Italian cattle heritage is in continuous contraction and many companies have ceased their activity, due to the high levels reached by all the main cost items and by the weak position held along the supply chain. The deep crisis and the situation of uncertainty that our country is going through leads the consumer to prefer convenient products with a high service content, leaving little room for the differentiation of fresh beef. So the prices of beef were pushed upwards not so much by demand, which was far from lively, but rather induced by high production costs. Precisely the weakness of consumption, which has resulted in a decidedly more modest retail price dynamics than those for production and wholesale, is the element that generates fears about the strength of the recovery, based more on external factors than on the elements fundamentals of the national market.