When we go to the supermarket for fruit, meat, fish or any other food we find labels that inform us of their prices, but that figure is only the last in a long (and complex) chain of costs in which not all the links move at the same pace. That is the idea that they wanted to emphasize the farmers on account of pork: according to their calculations, they charge 29% less today than in 2024 while the supermarkets sell it to us 7% more expensive.
The question is obvious: where is this differential, which according to industry estimates has given a jump of 179%?
What has happened? That the Coordinator of Farmers and Ranchers Organizations (COAG) just report “the growing gap” between what farms charge for pork and the prices that end customers end up paying in supermarkets. After analyzing the market for two years (from April 2024 to the same month of 2026) and calculate what is called the Price Index at Origin and Destination (IPOD), the agricultural organization has detected two trends that move in opposite directions in the production chain: while ranchers charge less for their product today than two years ago, supermarkets sell it at a higher price.
How much more expensive? COAG assures that in April 2024, farmers received 1.83 euros for each kilo of pork. In April 2026 (latest data available) this indicator had dropped to €1.3/kg. The striking thing is that (always according to COAG data) the “destination price”which the consumer pays in the supermarket, evolved in the opposite direction. From €6.45/kg in 2024, it went to €6.9/kg. What does that mean? Basically, while producers saw the price of their goods decline by 28.9%, the rates at which meat is sold in supermarkets grew by 6.9%.
Are there more indicators? Yes. The organization not only records the rates that are charged at one time or another. It also calculates the “farm-supermarket differential,” an indicator that basically shows how wide the margin is that separates both ends of the production chain. Their conclusion is even more revealing: while in 2024 the differential was 252%, last month it rose to 431%. The COAG speaks already of “a growing and unjustified gap between what the rancher charges and what the final consumer pays” in the supermarket.
“The data show that the drop in the price at origin has not been passed on to the consumer at any time. Quite the opposite: while the rancher was suffering a continued drop in income throughout 2025 and early 2026, the price in the supermarket not only remained stable, but continued to grow,” argues the coordinator, who denounces the effect of this double trend: “A net transfer of income from the producer to the distribution chain and the meat industry.”
What do the supermarkets say? Coincidence or not, the COAG report It comes just a few days after Asedas, the Spanish Association of Distributors, Self-service and Supermarkets, publicly complained of the “systematic distortions” and “simplistic approaches” that are often used when analyzing the prices that govern the different phases of the production chain. A speech that “generates confusion” and leads to thinking about “hidden intermediaries.”
“There are no abusive margins, the price of the final product is fully justified by real costs, risks assumed and investments made,” they argue from the association, which has presented a study precisely on how to “precisely” compare origin-destination prices. In the analysis, prepared by Manuel Hidalgo, professor of Economics at the Pablo de Olavide University, it is appointment among others the IPOD made by COAG. “It constitutes the most paradigmatic example of how a methodologically deficient approach can generate distorted perceptions about the real functioning of the agri-food chain.”
What do they argue? The study signed by Hidalgo warns that the IPOD, “far from providing clarity to the debate, introduces significant distortions” and is based on “a conceptually erroneous premise: the idea that the agri-food chain can be analyzed through a simple binary comparison between two points.” The economist warns of “value creation processes” and remember that more actors than farms and supermarkets participate in the chain that brings food from the fields to the tables.
Throughout the report, Hidalgo denounces other errors, such as comparing the lowest prices at origin with “the highest observed” on the shelves, that there are comparisons based on unrepresentative samples or that gross margin and net profit are wrongly equated.
And what do they propose then? Alternatively, the economist poses a calculation formula that exemplifies with several products. One of them is olive oil, which is tracked from its price at origin (€2.35/l) to that applied in stores (€7.5/l). In between, it indicates the transformation and distribution phases, during which the oil incorporates an “added value” of €5.15 and a commercial margin. “This increase is not speculation, but the sum of necessary services,” concludes the analysis, presented by Asedas and Caea.
What’s happening with the market? Beyond the interpretations of some and others about where the margin of money that separates what is paid on farms and in supermarkets ends, one thing is clear: the Spanish pork market is going through a complex moment. Farmers have been greatly affected by the cases of African swine fever detected at the end of last year in Catalonia, which made China ban the entry gender from Barcelona. In general, the data from the Interporc employer association show that in 2025 exports generally fell by 3.4% annually, dragging down turnover, which contracted by 300 million euros.
The impact of swine fever it didn’t take long in letting yourself feel with price drops and the search for new markets. A complex scenario that, months later, was followed by the hangover from the Iran war, which, as in many other sectors (including agricultural ones) was felt with an increase in price of fuels. With this backdrop, and for the sake of a more precise ‘photo’ of what is happening with prices, COAG demands something else from the Government: that it publish updated data on the value chain and costs of food, “a way to strengthen transparency”, claims Andoni García, director of the organization.
Images | Diego San (Unsplash) and Kyle Mackie (Unplash)
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