Market evolution: Animal products not elsewhere specified (CN 05) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the evolution of EU trade in products classified under Combined Nomenclature heading 05 — "Products of Animal Origin, Not Elsewhere Specified or Included" — over the period 2015 to 2025. This heterogeneous product group encompasses animal guts and bladders (CN 0504), feathers and down (CN 0505), bones and horn-cores (CN 0506), ivory, horns and antlers (CN 0507), shells and coral (CN 0508), pharmaceutical animal extracts (CN 0510), and other animal products unfit for human consumption (CN 0511). Despite its catch-all nature, the category is economically significant: in 2025, EU imports from non-EU countries totalled €1.66 billion and exports reached €1.24 billion (General Overview). Over the decade, the EU's trade in CN 05 was shaped by three broad dynamics: a pronounced shift from volume-driven to price-driven growth, a realignment of trading partners influenced by geopolitical events, and a structural transformation of the EU's domestic production base that sharply reduced import dependence.

1. Price-driven growth masks stagnating physical trade volumes

The headline value figures for EU trade in CN 05 show steady expansion between 2015 and 2025. However, disaggregating value, quantity, and unit price reveals that the apparent growth is almost entirely a price phenomenon, while physical trade volumes have stagnated or declined.

Export values rose while export volumes fell

EU exports to non-EU countries grew in value from €1.04 billion in 2015 to €1.24 billion in 2025, a 19.0% increase. Over the same span, the quantity exported fell from 629,850 tonnes to 605,314 tonnes, a decline of 3.9%. The gap between the two trends is explained by a 23.8% rise in the average unit export price, from €1,657/t to €2,051/t. In other words, the EU exported fewer physical tonnes but earned more per tonne, pointing to either a compositional shift towards higher-value sub-products, general inflation in raw material prices, or both.

Import growth was even more price-dependent

Imports tell a similar story in amplified form. Total import value rose 24.3%, from €1.34 billion to €1.66 billion, while imported volumes actually contracted by 9.8% — from 857,513 tonnes down to 773,247 tonnes. The average import price surged 37.7%, from €1,558/t to €2,145/t. This pronounced price effect on imports, steeper than on exports, widened the EU's unit-price gap with the rest of the world: by 2025, the EU was paying more per tonne for what it imported than it earned per tonne it exported (€2,145/t versus €2,051/t), whereas in 2015 the relationship had been reversed.

The trade deficit widened despite value growth on both sides

The EU ran a persistent trade deficit in CN 05 throughout the period. This deficit narrowed from €292 million in 2015 to a trough of approximately €159 million around 2019–2020, before widening sharply again to reach €418 million in 2025 — a 43.2% deterioration relative to the start of the period. The pattern suggests that the mid-period improvement was driven by a combination of depressed import volumes and rising EU export competitiveness, but that the post-2020 environment — marked by pandemic after-effects, energy-price shocks, and supply-chain disruptions — pushed import prices up faster than the EU could offset through its own export pricing.

Source: General Overview

Sub-product price behaviour diverged sharply

Not all sub-headings moved in the same direction. The most dramatic price movements occurred in feathers and down (CN 0505), where import prices tripled from €2,317/t in 2015 to €6,938/t in 2025, and export prices soared from €3,536/t to €8,870/t. This likely reflects tightening global supply of quality down and feathers amid growing demand from the apparel and bedding industries. Pharmaceutical animal extracts (CN 0510) also saw extreme price escalation on the import side, jumping from €1,657/t to €6,808/t — a fourfold increase. Meanwhile, bones and horn-cores (CN 0506) saw import prices collapse to just €111/t by 2025, down from €204/t in 2015, suggesting a structural decline in demand or oversupply of this raw material.

Source: Product Segment Breakdown

2. A shifting geography of trade: consolidation on the import side, diversification on the export side

The decade saw a notable realignment of the EU's trading partners for CN 05. On the import side, the market became more concentrated around a smaller number of key suppliers — most prominently China. On the export side, by contrast, the EU diversified away from its traditional Asian destinations and towards a wider set of markets.

China consolidated its position as the EU's dominant import supplier

China was already the single largest source of CN 05 imports in 2015, accounting for €551 million. By 2025 this figure had grown to €739 million, a 34.1% increase, reinforcing China's overwhelming share of EU imports in this category. China's dominance is consistent with the country's role as the world's largest processor of animal by-products — particularly guts (used in sausage casings), feathers, and pharmaceutical-grade animal extracts. The import concentration index (Herfindahl–Hirschman Index by value) for imports rose from 1,933 in 2015 to 2,205 in 2025, a 14.0% increase confirming that imports became more concentrated around fewer origins.

Brexit reshaped EU–UK trade flows in both directions

The United Kingdom was the EU's second-largest import source in 2015 (€123 million) and the largest single export destination. By 2025, UK imports had declined 32.0% to €84 million, and EU exports to the UK had also fallen 9.0% to €109 million. While some of this decline predates Brexit's formal completion, the persistent contraction after 2020 is consistent with the introduction of customs checks, sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) controls, and new regulatory barriers for animal-origin products. The UK's share fell in both directions, creating space for other partners to gain prominence.

Several emerging partners saw rapid growth

Beyond China, the most dynamic import growth came from the Faroe Islands (+59.6%), Brazil (+54.4%), and — despite its small base — several smaller suppliers. On the export side, the most striking expansions were in Norway (+198.4%), Liechtenstein (+168.1%), the United States (+128.2%), and Viet Nam (+118.7%). These shifts suggest the EU's export sector found new markets to compensate for the loss of Asian re-export hubs — most notably Hong Kong, where EU exports collapsed by 81.3%, from €151 million in 2015 to just €28 million in 2025.

Source: Top partners

The export market became less concentrated while imports became more so

The contrast in concentration dynamics is notable. The export-side HHI fell 24.9% (from 1,009 to 758), reflecting a broadening of export destinations. The import-side HHI rose 14.0% (from 1,933 to 2,205), reflecting growing reliance on a narrower set of suppliers. This asymmetry exposes the EU to greater supply-side risk on imports even as it has reduced demand-side risk on exports.

Source: Concentration

Price shocks struck specific supplier relationships

The volatility analysis identified three significant price shocks. The largest was a Brazilian import-price shock in 2022, with a 58.2% price shift and an abnormality score of 32.6 — likely linked to the post-pandemic surge in global protein and raw-material prices. A Faroe Islands import-price shock followed in 2023 (+90.5%), and a Philippines export-price shock occurred in 2022 (+140.4%). Smaller partner relationships exhibited the highest coefficient of variation: exports to Norway (CV = 0.91) and imports from the Faroe Islands (CV = 0.72) were among the most volatile bilateral flows.

3. The EU's structural transformation: surging domestic production and collapsing import reliance

Perhaps the most significant development over the decade was the EU's internal transformation. Domestic production of CN 05 products expanded dramatically, and the EU's net import reliance fell to historically low levels — fundamentally altering the sector's external orientation.

EU production volumes nearly doubled while values more than doubled

According to PRODCOM production data, EU domestic production of CN 05 products surged from 2.70 billion kg in 2015 to 4.31 billion kg in 2025 — a 59.9% increase in volume. Production value rose even faster, from €691 million to €1.62 billion, an increase of 133.6%. This indicates both a massive expansion in physical output and a move towards higher-value processing of animal by-products within the EU. The production peak in value terms was even higher, reaching €2.23 billion in an intermediate year before retreating, suggesting some cyclical volatility within the overall upward trend.

Net import reliance collapsed from 42% to 14%

The most dramatic indicator of the EU's changing position is its net import reliance, which measures the share of domestic consumption satisfied by net imports. This figure fell from 42.1% in 2015 to just 14.0% in 2025 — a 66.7% reduction. At its lowest point, net import reliance dipped to approximately 10.4%. This transformation means that the EU shifted from being a significant net importer of animal-origin products to being largely self-sufficient, with domestic production covering the vast majority of consumption needs.

Export propensity surged as the EU became a more outward-oriented producer

Consistent with rising domestic production, the export propensity — the share of domestic production exported to non-EU markets — climbed from 36.2% in 2015 to 58.2% in 2025, a 60.9% increase. In other words, while the EU produced much more than before, it also directed a growing share of that output to external markets. Trade intensity (the ratio of combined trade flows to the sum of production and imports) also rose modestly from 69.5% to 76.1%, indicating that the sector became more internationally engaged overall.

Source: Autonomy & Vulnerability

EU member states exhibited divergent specialisation patterns

The specialisation analysis for 2025 reveals that Denmark held the highest Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA = 0.45, RCA = 2.66) in CN 05, followed by Cyprus (RSCA = 0.34) and Poland (RSCA = 0.25). Denmark and Poland are both major processors of animal by-products, with Poland's export performance growing particularly strongly (+162.8% in value over the decade). At the other end, Luxembourg (RSCA = −0.93), Malta (RSCA = −0.89), and Slovenia (RSCA = −0.55) showed the weakest specialisation, consistent with their smaller livestock and processing sectors.

Among the larger EU economies, Germany remained the single largest importer (€538 million in 2025) and exporter (€182 million), though its export value declined 25.4% over the period. Spain emerged as a particularly dynamic player, with imports surging 102.2% and exports rising 53.4%, reflecting the country's growing role in animal by-product processing.

Conclusion

The EU's trade in CN 05 products between 2015 and 2025 was characterised by a fundamental structural transformation. On the surface, both import and export values grew healthily — by 24% and 19% respectively — but this headline growth concealed stagnating or declining physical volumes and was driven overwhelmingly by rising unit prices, particularly in feathers and down (CN 0505) and pharmaceutical animal extracts (CN 0510).

Geographically, the period saw a dual realignment. On the import side, China further consolidated its dominance, while Brexit reduced the UK's role as both supplier and customer. The export side became more diversified, with the EU redirecting flows away from Hong Kong towards the United States, Norway, and Viet Nam. Importantly, the asymmetry between increasing import concentration and decreasing export concentration has left the EU more exposed to supply disruption from a narrower set of origins — a vulnerability partially mitigated by the third major development: the EU's own production surge.

Domestic production of CN 05 products nearly doubled in volume and more than doubled in value, driving net import reliance down from 42% to just 14%. The EU has transformed from a structurally import-dependent market to one where domestic output covers the vast majority of demand and where a growing share of that output is channelled into exports. This shift has strengthened the EU's strategic autonomy in this product category, even as specific sub-segments — notably feathers, pharmaceutical extracts, and sausage casings — remain subject to significant price volatility and concentrated import exposure.