PORK prices fell sharply last week for the first time in 10 months, as consumers cut back on the pricey meat, analysts said.

Chinese pork prices hit record levels after an epidemic of African swine fever killed pigs in the world’s top pork producer.

The government said the country’s herd has shrunk by 41 percent since a year ago, or almost 200 million pigs, and analysts say pork output will plunge by about a quarter, or 13 million tons this year.

Prices surged in October, reaching a high of 53.79 yuan (US$7.69) per kilogram Oct. 23, up 188 percent from a year earlier. But they have fallen back since the end of October, reaching 50 yuan Nov. 8.

“After recent price hikes, pork was already at a point where people can’t afford it, so it just took one trigger,” said Jim Huang, chief executive at China-America Commodity Data Analytics.

He believes the trigger was panic-selling by farmers in the northeast about two weeks ago, where reports have circulated of a wave of outbreaks of swine fever.

Officials in five counties of Heilongjiang Province where outbreaks had allegedly taken place said there had been no recent disease.

But some additional slaughtering in the north allowed slaughterhouses to push down prices paid for live hogs, driving prices lower throughout the supply chain, said Pan Chenjun, senior analyst at Dutch financial services firm Rabobank.

Huang said lower prices also pushed traders to sell more frozen pork from warehouses.

In addition, consumption has declined about 30 percent since October due to the high prices, said Zhu Zengyong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, citing a market survey.

In its weekly report, Beijing’s major wholesale meat market, Xinfadi, said in late October that about 10 percent of carcasses, and sometimes as much as 20 percent, were being returned to slaughterhouses unsold because of high prices.

Given that Beijing is likely more resilient than smaller cities around the country, consumption could have dropped substantially, Pan said.

“This is a correction of the very rapid price increase, not due to any oversupply,” Pan added.

But like others, she expects prices to recover soon.

“I think prices will go back to the previous range and probably go up again,” she said, pointing to rising demand in the coming weeks ahead of the year-end festive period and Chinese New Year holidays.(SD-Agencies)