Századok – 2023
2023 / 1. szám - TÁRSADALMI, GAZDASÁGI KIHÍVÁSOK – NAGYVÁROSI VÁLASZOK - Umbrai Laura: A budapesti sertéshizlalás és -kereskedelem története a 20. század első felében
UMBRAI LAURA THE HISTORY OF SWINE FATTENING AND TRADE AT BUDAPEST IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY By Laura Umbrai SUMMARY In the field of public food supply Budapest boasted several individual, and successful, initiatives. Confronted by the problem of rising meat prices, however, the city proved impotent and its involvement consequently long remained limited to administrative measures (concerning animal health care and market affairs). In the case of pork, no „traditional” communal factory (such as the Communal Bread Factory, the Communal Horsemeat Factory or the Communal Foodstuff Selling Factory) was set up. Yet the city did not give up the fight to extend its influence over the various segments of the sector. After the organisation of the swine market and the slaughterhouse, the idea was to dislocate the fattening farms of Kőbánya and thus to gain the right to supervise the new fattening facilities and the export market. Thus, by elevating its own swine market, which had so far only produced for the local market, to an international rank, the municipality would multiply the meat supply realised in the capital. Although, by the acquisition of the shares of the Nagytétény pig-rearing factories, the idea had been set to work by the eve of World War II, the post-1918 economic changes took the implementation of the original conception off the vagenda. 57
