How Switzerland’s pig’s feet export gamble in China faltered

EPA/PAUL HILTON

The chance to sell unwanted pork cuts to China for high prices was too good to resist. But record-low prices and higher shipping costs due to the war in Iran are now denting Swiss pork exporters’ profits, according to Swissinfo analysis.

The year 2012 was one of the worst for the Swiss pig industry. A surplus of pigs meant that 8% more pork hit the market compared to 2009. Despite rock-bottom prices, imports of 200 tonnes of pork were approved in anticipation of high demand in summer. Instead, rainy weather in June and July kept pork consumption down and, to make matters worse, the cost of feed had risen due to a low global soja harvest.

Despite – or perhaps because of the bad news – the meat processor Swiss Nutrivalor AG announced in July 2012 that it was building a new CHF20 million ($25 million) processing plant to prepare pork parts like feet, tails, bones and organs for export to Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. As luck would have it, almost exactly a year later Switzerland signed a free trade deal with China. The Alpine nation became the first European country and the first top 20 economy to achieve this feat. China is the world’s largest pork market, accounting for almost half of all pork consumed globally at around 50 million tonnes. It is also the main importer of pig offal at just over one million tonnes a year.

Ready to export

Just three months after the free trade deal was signed, Swiss Nutrivalor AG obtained the building permit for its factory in Oensingen in northern Switzerland and was operational in 2017. Two years later it was one of five Swiss companies awarded the coveted licence to export pig’s feet to China. It took Swiss Nutrivalor AG a year and a half to meet the requirements imposed by the Chinese authorities. For example, pork and beef products must be separated during processing to avoid the risk of cross contamination with diseases such as BSE, also known as mad cow disease. The Chinese authorities also reserve the right to inspect the licensed slaughterhouses and meat processors.

A 10 kilo bag of Swiss Meat pig’s feet sells for 350 yuan (CHF40) on online platform Taobao. Taobao

Obtaining access to the Chinese market was a great opportunity to turbocharge Nutrivalor’s  niche export bet. Last year the company shipped about 200 containers of premium Swiss byproducts to China. Like most Swiss exports, the emphasis is on upselling the “Swiss Made” brand.

“Product prices are not fixed in the agreements but a result of the open market of supply and demand. But we do get higher-than-average prices as we offer a premium brand and premium quality product labelled ‘Swiss Meat’,” Christoph Speck, CEO of Swiss Nutrivalor AG’s parent company Centravo, told Swissinfo.

Falling price in China and shipping bottleneck

But what began as a promising business now risks becoming a liability. The farmgate price of pigs in China is at its lowest in 15 years. According to Dutch food industry analyst DCA Market Intelligence, the dip is due to a combination of weaker demand in China for pork and rising costs of inputs for Chinese pig farmers due to the war in Iran.

The problem has been exacerbated by the fact that China raises too many pigs. For more than two-and-a-half years, the Chinese government has been trying to reduce the sow herd from 41 million to 39 million. As of the end of March 2026, China had 39.61 million sows.

“Pig farmers in the country have however not adjusted their production sufficiently, resulting in a surplus of breeding sows. In addition, the costs of feeding the large pig herd threaten to rise now that global agricultural markets are under pressure from disruptions in the supply of energy and fertiliser from the Middle East,” said a report by DCA Market Intelligence.

According to the market research agency Mysteel, Chinese pig breeders are losing more than 400 yuan (around $58) per animal.

As China reduces its imports of pork and offal, Swiss exporters are also affected. Centravo did not share information on prices but Speck told Swissinfo that profits had fallen due to lower prices. However, according to him, there is less pressure on his company because Centravo is selling a premium product.

He said the biggest challenges for his firm are a worsening US dollar-Swiss franc exchange rate and higher container shipping costs due to the Strait of Hormuz blockade. But he has a plan B if the situation deteriorates further and the China avenue dries up completely.

“In case the prices in China would drop further and/or the cost of shipment would increase significantly, then we would redirect the products into other channels or produce different products out of it,” he said.

UN trade data shows that the Swiss profits from exporting pig’s feet have dropped in recent years.

Swiss products also appear to be losing their premium appeal among Chinese consumers. Swissinfo found Nutrivalor’s ‘Swiss Meat’ branded pig’s feet selling for 35 yuan per kilo on the Chinese online shopping platform Taobao that is owned by Alibaba. Pig’s feet sold by China’s largest producer WH Group (formerly Shuanghui Group) were also sold at the same price on Taobao.

There were also no recent sales recorded for the Swiss Meat pig’s feet on Taobao. When contacted, the seller told Swissinfo that it is mainly a wholesale product and that consumers generally don’t buy it online.

Additional inputs by Jie Guo Zehnder and Ying Zhang. Edited by Virginie Mangin/sb