Beef price tracker 2

Your third paragraph is the most important for lads to read and understand because this is where the mistakes are being made. This is something I’m preaching about on here for a long time.

The weight loss you got there from yard to mart is perfectly normal and I’ve often seen it higher than that, especially in the likes of birr during busy sales with only one ring where bullocks dropped off at 7 in the morning might not be sold until 3 or 4 in the evening.

That weight loss is the contents of their stomachs and their dung and urine, it’s not the meat off their backs. This is the important bit and this is the figures the factory men all understand. It’s the reason an O grade animal that would kill 50% of their yard weight will kill 52-53% of their mart weight. Or why a well fed heavy U grade animal that you’d expect to kill 58% of yard weight will kill 62 or 63% of their mart weight.

That few percent extra at €8 a kilo could be €250-€300 on a 750 kilo U grade animal.

Does this break down Mart vs Factory appropriately?

The cattle were sold in the same week so quoted base price applied,cattle here are weighed off our lorry at a local grain store the day before sale,I should definitely be weighing more often & invest in a scales.

A U grade bullock in Birr mart could have up to 5% difference.

Even at 4% it’s 30kgs so €240 at €8 per kg.

There is a bit of a toss of a coin in which is better. Where I am located, we are lucky in that the distance to 3 of the meat plants is close enough plus you have 3 small operators who are fairly competitive. The local mart would also have a strong Northern Ireland customer base, these lads are very strong for good U grade "fancy" cattle near fit. One of the factories would also be kinder grading FR cattle than the other two. In reality you would need to judge each animal on its own merits and then decide mart or factory & then which factory to try and maximise your return.

Where you getting UK prices from?

Information is the key to power, contacts in the UK and UK factories email price lists to suppliers and prime cattle being quoted at 7.20 now

7.60 blks 7.70 heifers base price next week locally flat pricing off the table at the moment they were paying 8.20 flat for continentals. He said numbers will dictate if they have to pay it again

factories sorted for cattle next week after that they are very worried they have flushed out cattle by trying to pull them

At some stage prices are going to stabilise. I remember commenting 8-10 weeks ago that flat prices significantly above base prices were not in farmers interest in the longterm. This was because it allows processors to drop prices rapidly by shutting g down flat prices and reducing base prices by 10-20c and then dropping them.

Processors may be happy with supply, new contract are now in place with retailers with probably reduced volumes and different pricing mechanisms.

A couple friends sof my wife were over a few nights ago. It got to the price e of groceries and meat in particular. They all commented how how expensive food shopping has got and .eat in particular. I said as a farmer beef was not half dear enough tongue in cheek. They took it in good form. However one of the ladies commented that they do a family event once a year and buy a large roast. They order it in advance off the butcher. Last year it was about 80 euro, this year it's over 120 euro. She said she get 3-4 legs if lamb for it

She'd be doing very well to get 2 legs of lamb for €120.

25-33 euroʻ would be the bracket legs if lamb fall into

I wouldn't send either of you to do the shopping. Legs of lamb are in the 2.2- 3.2kg bracket. Decent one are from 2.8kgs up. You will buy legs a lot of the year for 10/ kg and below. Lamb because of its fat content freezes well. Even at 12-14/ kg you be getting 3 legs for 120 euro

they are fair active buying forward stores today for there feedlots

I heard from the horses mouth that my local factory is only killing 3 days a week and not even full capacity on those days, they can’t get cattle. So hold tight if selling!