At Nortura’s cold storage in Rakkestad, the shelves are filled to the ceiling with meat. Two months before Christmas, there are around 5,000 tonnes of cattle in stock, and around 4,000 tonnes of pigs. By the New Year, this could increase to over 10,000 tonnes. Usually at this time of the year they have a couple of thousand tonnes in stock, but now the scraps have piled up. Executive director Kjell Rakkenes in Nortura says there are several reasons why it has become this way. – We see, among other things, that the rise in prices has led to people relying more on the krone. In addition, you may throw away less food than before. And then we imported too much meat in 2022, which means that there are many people who have large stocks of meat they want out on the market, he says. Executive director for strategy, planning and communication, Kjell Rakkenes, in front of a rack of pigs. Photo: Tore Tollersrud / news In recent years, a spotlight has been directed at Norwegian meat consumption, both because of the climate and because of health. But according to Rakkenes, this has had little to do with the situation we see now. – Many people wonder what is happening to meat consumption. We see that it fell by between 0.7 and 1 per cent per person per year. So the big explanation probably doesn’t lie there. Norwegian Christmas ribs on the table In the last couple of years, Norway has had to import pork ribs from abroad in order to satisfy the demand for Christmas. But with several thousand tonnes of Norwegian pork in the freezer, it will hardly be necessary to get foreign Christmas pigs this year, says director of Nortura, Ole Skulberg. – Now people can eat as many ribs as they can handle before Christmas. This year there is more in stock. Less food waste may have led to more pigs in storage, Nortura believes. In the blue bags are pigs which, among other things, will become Christmas ribs this year. But whether she will be cheap is still unknown. Photo: Tore Tollersrud / news Norgesgruppen, which also owns the grocery chains Kiwi, Spar and Meny, also expects to have enough ribs for Christmas. But points to the fact that it is whole animals that are frozen, and not parts. – There will probably be ribs for Christmas. But I think the warehouse has little to say, if there is not a plan for how the rest of the animal will be used, says communications manager Kine Søyland in the Norgesgruppen. Have given discounts This has meant that Nortura has reduced the prices of the meat sold from the cold storage by 17 per cent on cattle and 25 per cent on pork. And Rakkenes reckons that the prices will stay like this well into the new year. – As long as we have not realized this warehouse, which we expect to have done within the next year, we must maintain the prices we have now. Director of Nortura Totalmarked, Ole Skulberg. Photo: Tore Tollersrud / news Figures from Statistics Norway show that we got cheaper meat in the shops in September, after Nortura reduced the price of raw materials. But much of the discount was lost in the production stage on the way from the cold store to the cold counter. The sale of pigs and cattle has decreased in the last year due to the general rise in prices. But the price reduction in autumn had an effect, says Søyland in the Norgesgruppen. – We saw growth in the butcher’s hall, especially for meat dough and pork chop dough, after the raw material prices were reduced. She thinks it will take a long time to empty Nortura’s warehouse because there are many parts to be sold. And for pigs, the price will probably have to fall further before it has any effect. – We see that the price of pork is still higher now than at the start of 2021. The discount that came more or less cancels out the price increase that came on 1 July. I think the prices must continue to fall to have an effect on demand, she says. Difficult to plan Nortura is a company owned by the farmer. In addition to being a meat producer, Nortura also helps to regulate the market. They expect that the full freezer stocks will only start to decrease somewhat in 2024. – That is why the farmer has also started to reduce his production now, so that we can reduce the stocks as quickly as possible, says Skulberg. But the long production time makes it difficult to plan, says leader of the Norwegian Farmers’ Association, Bjørn Gimming. – The animals that are now being sent to slaughter were conceived during the start of the pandemic. It is difficult to adapt very quickly. Leader of the Norwegian Farmers’ Association, Bjørn Gimming. Photo: Camilla Alexandra Lie / news He also believes that the full stocks are partly due to a bad barbecue season, and that more animals are slaughtered earlier than planned. – We had a bad growing season, which means that the farmer does not have enough food for his animals. This contributes to more animals than usual being sent to slaughter.
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Nortura has an unusually large surplus of meat in cold storage – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
