After several turbulent years, Eastern European feed production has entered a phase of stabilisation and modest recovery. However, persistent challenges continue to cloud the long-term outlook. The region now faces a mix of recovery opportunities and structural hurdles.
In the 2024/25 marketing year, the feed industry in Eastern Europe entered a “stabilisation phase,” Zoltan Pulay, FEFAC Vice-President, commented. The industry is recovering following severe disruptions during 2022 and 2023, caused by rising energy costs, outbreaks of veterinary diseases and overwhelming imports from non-EU countries.
Recovery led by Poland
Poland, the EU’s largest poultry exporter, is driving the region’s recovery. Poultry feed production is projected to rise by 2.3% and pig feed production by 2.7% in 2025, Pulay noted.
Disease outbreaks hinder progress
However, some parts of the region are clearly lagging behind. For example, Hungary’s poultry sector has stalled due to avian influenza outbreaks, with approximately 10% of Hungarian waterfowl producers exiting the market in 2023, and this segment is yet to recover, Pulay said. In the pig feed segment, Hungary is expected to see a 3.6% decline in production in 2025, primarily due to a series of African swine fever (ASF) outbreaks spreading from the southern regions.
This year, ASF has also proved to be a game-changer for the pig industry in the Baltic region. Disease outbreaks in the second half of 2025 triggered a 20% decline in the Estonian pig population, while Latvia saw nearly 7% of its pigs lost to the largest outbreak in years. These declines have directly reduced feed demand and disrupted supply chains, forcing mills to adapt production and formulations.
Cattle feed faces new challenges
Cattle feed also faces turbulence. Hungary and Slovakia suffered losses due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease early in 2025, Pulay said. “In the quarantine regions, not only dairy farmers were affected, but also hog and poultry farmers suffered losses due to transportation restrictions,” Pulay added.
Geopolitics and feed costs
The conflict in Ukraine, now entering its 5th year, has profoundly impacted the feed industry of neighbouring Eastern European countries, commented Nandini Roy Choudhury, senior partner with Future Market Insights, a consultancy. “In neighbouring Eastern European countries, the war triggered spikes in grain, fertiliser and energy prices, compressing farmer margins and making them more cautious with investment. It also redirected some capital towards storage, logistics resilience and risk management rather than purely on productivity upgrades,” Choudhury said.
Competition from non-EU imports
In recent years, farmers across Europe have been complaining about the influx of relatively cheap Ukrainian products, mainly chicken and eggs. These complaints have been especially prominent in neighbouring countries, such as Poland and Hungary, where farmers warn of substantial losses when competing with Ukrainian exports that are not subject to the same sanitary and animal welfare standards as EU producers.
Regulatory and trade pressures
Geopolitical factors will likely dominate feed manufacturers’ agendas in Eastern Europe in 2026. Pulay noted that the industry is impacted by anti-dumping actions against EU pork imports taken by China and EU regulatory pressures.
The gap is narrowing
In 2023, UBM Group, Hungary’s largest feed manufacturer, estimated that Eastern Europe was still 10 to 20 years behind Western Europe in feed production technologies, although the gap was narrowing.
“Eastern Europe today is not one industry; it is 2 industries coexisting in the same geography—modern mills that match Western European standards, and legacy plants still reliant on manual operations and outdated equipment.” – Nandini Roy Choudhury, Senior Partner, Future Market Insights
East versus West: Technology divide
There are still several significant differences between the feed industry in the eastern and western EU countries. “Eastern Europe today is not one industry; it is 2 industries coexisting in the same geography,” Choudhury said.” On one side, you have modern, greenfield mills built since roughly 2010 that are effectively Western-grade. However, on the other hand, you still have legacy plants that look and behave like 1990s Western Europe.
New mills in Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, the Baltics, and some parts of Ukraine run high-capacity pelleting lines, automated batching, and reasonably efficient grinding and dust control, Choudhury said. “The real lag is concentrated in older mills in the Balkans and rural areas, where batching is still partly manual, mixing uniformity is weaker, and energy consumption per tonne is high,” Choudhury said. Volume-weighted, a meaningful minority of feed is already produced in Western-equivalent plants, while the rest is still behind.
Market structure and consolidation
Eastern Europe’s feed industry is characterised by significantly smaller, more fragmented market structures compared to North-Western Europe, FEFAC’s Pulay said. “Poland and Hungary have numerous independent feed mills alongside some larger producers, contrasting sharply with North-Western Europe’s consolidated landscape dominated by a few larger cooperatives and multinational companies,” he added.
Resilience of small feed mills
Low consolidation makes the feed industry in Eastern Europe more vulnerable to market turbulence. “Small independent mills face compounded challenges. They have limited financial buffers for absorbing input cost volatility, cannot negotiate raw material prices as aggressively as large competitors, and struggle with regulatory compliance burdens,” Pulay said.
As an example of lower flexibility, Pulay noted that, as feed production costs rose by €25-35 per tonne just for energy in 2022, larger producers could spread these costs across larger volumes and access capital markets to hedge. However, Pulay emphasised, the story is more complex than simple vulnerability. “Smaller mills in Eastern Europe often demonstrate resilience through vertical integration – many dairy and poultry producers operate captive feed mills, which improved their positioning during input price spikes. Additionally, small mills benefit from lower overheads and can be more agile in sourcing decisions,” Pulay added.
Adapting to new realities
Quite a few factors will determine the future of the feed industry in Eastern Europe, analysts believe. A combination of shifts in global trade, evolving consumer demand, and regulatory tightening will shape investment priorities and competitiveness.
Non-EU trade reshaping markets
Conditions of trade with non-EU countries are key factors for livestock producers, especially in Poland. Recent amendments to the EU-Mercosur agreement are intended to safeguard the European egg industry against poultry imports from Latin America, Paweł Podstawka, chairman of the National Federation of Poultry Breeders and Egg Producers, noted. Poland primarily exports poultry and eggs to other EU countries, so the EU’s agreement with Mercosur could threaten industry stability, Poland’s farmers warned.
Impact of Ukrainian imports
Imports from Ukraine further complicate feed market dynamics. “The significant flow of agricultural commodities, including grains, oilseed meals and fibres currently moving from Ukraine into the EU is a prelude to what may come in the future,” Pulay said. “On the one side, it fills the gap of the net importer regions in Southern Europe; on the other, it requires balance once this terrible war in Ukraine ends, and there may be a significant, large-scale livestock and feed processing industry that may look to the EU as its main export market.”
“Recent stabilisation reflects European diversification away from Russian supplies and alternative sourcing, benefiting Eastern Europe’s feed producers more than during the acute 2022 crisis, but still less than Western producers who enjoy structural supply advantages.” – Zoltan Pulay, Vice-President, FEFAC
Shifts in production and demand
The volume of animal products, including possibly feed, exported to the EU could increase substantially in the next decade. This will inevitably drive competition, which is a highly sensitive issue. “A key discussion point is how and when Ukrainian production will meet the EU’s agricultural and food safety standards,” Pulay noted. According to Pulay, in 2024 and 2025, energy price normalisation has provided considerable relief, though costs remain elevated above pre-war levels.
“The average stabilisation reflects European diversification away from Russian supplies and alternative sourcing, benefiting Eastern Europe’s feed producers more than the acute 2022 crisis but to a lesser extent than Western producers with structural supply advantages,” Pulay said.
Withdrawal of backyard farming
A gradual withdrawal of backyard farming across Eastern Europe is underway. “The trajectory is the same one Western Europe went through decades ago: as incomes rise and people move to cities, labour becomes more valuable, and food systems formalise. Families still keep a few pigs or chickens as a social safety net, but the share of meat and milk entering supermarket and export chains from such systems steadily declines,” Choudhury said.
This trend is expected to support feed production across the region, as backyard farms tend to rely on home-made feed, which is rarely included in official statistical data. “You see the rise of industrial-scale units in poultry and pigs [in Eastern Europe],” Choudhury noted. “Large integrated broiler and hog operations in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the Baltics already look very similar to their Western European counterparts. These units run on purchased compound feed and demand tight nutritional and biosecurity specifications. That demand structure is what pulls the feed industry forward — forcing mills to upgrade hardware, formulation and quality systems or risk losing their largest customers,” Choudhury added.
Slow growth, incremental upgrades
Over the next 3 to 5 years, feed volumes across Eastern Europe are likely to grow slowly or remain broadly flat, Choudhury said. “Poultry continues to expand, pigs remain under pressure and ruminants are mostly stable. Inflation and war-related volatility in grain and energy keep margins tight,” Choudhury said. According to Choudhury, investment is focused on incremental upgrades — automation, energy efficiency, and basic sustainability compliance — rather than large, speculative greenfield projects.
