Following the African Swine Fever outbreak in Spain, there have been calls from across the industry for government to redouble efforts to maintain the UK’s border biosecurity.

Commenting on the situation and the wider implications for trade and supply in the run-up to Christmas Peter Hardwick, BMPA’s Trade Policy Advisor said: “We have had ASF cases in countries nearer to the UK than Spain in the recent past including Poland and Germany, the latter being a bigger supplier to the UK than Spain. As with those countries, Spain is applying a regionalisation policy and the UK is at liberty to apply an import ban, which can be eased as and when the situation becomes clearer and the outbreak is under control.

“An outbreak in the UK would be catastrophic, so we need the highest levels of biosecurity, but there are massive vested interests within EU countries with much bigger pig industries than ours which means that significant efforts are likely to be made to prevent this.” This is being borne out right now in Germany where a new mandatory Quality and Safety (QS) requirement for pig farmers to submit a risk assessment for their annual QS audit is to be introduced in 2026.

But, while Spain is a significant supplier of pork to the UK, we should see it in context of overall import volumes. Peter explains: “We imported 45,000 tonnes of fresh and frozen pork from Spain in 2024 – some 13% of the total so it won’t have much effect on the UK market as such as this can be substituted. It may cause some short-term disruption as supply chains reorganise, and it remains to be seen how long that disruption will last. It’s also worth noting that Spain has signed a regionalisation agreement with China, so they will be able to mitigate some of the impact of the outbreak.

“In terms of what consumers may notice it will be in the area of Spanish cured meats, Jamón Serrano, Chorizo etc as these are also risk products and their import is likely to be restricted or paused in the run up to Christmas.”

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