Quotes creep up again despite strong numbers

€5.30/kg generally available for bullocks

Moving on: This 784kg November 2020-born Belgian Blue cross heifer, a prize-winner at Carnew Mart, sold for €4,000. Photo: Roger Jones

Moving on: This 784kg November 2020-born Belgian Blue cross heifer, a prize-winner at Carnew Mart, sold for €4,000. Photo: Roger Jones

Latest factory prices

Moving on: This 784kg November 2020-born Belgian Blue cross heifer, a prize-winner at Carnew Mart, sold for €4,000. Photo: Roger Jones

Martin Coughlan

February 07 2023 02:30 AM

With factory numbers continuing strong — 34,732 for the week ending January 29 — one observer of the trade told me he had “a suspicion that factories have a hand on the handbrake”. Maybe they do, but it’s not showing.

As of yesterday good customers were getting €5.30/kg for bullocks and in cases where a factory was short, €5.35/kg. That’s up another 5c/kg and this is a short week, with plants closed yesterday for the bank holiday.

While you could read a lot into that fact, a good number of plants only kill four days anyway, reserving the fifth day to finish boning out and organising deliveries.

The general run of quotes for bullocks is €5.20-5.25/kg, with heifers on €5.30/kg, but when it comes to the actual price there is that extra 5-10c/kg available.

Demand for manufacturing beef shows no signs of abating, and well-fleshed Friesian O grade cull cows are now selling to €4.80/kg, with those less well finished or back at O- on €4.50-4.70/kg.

Latest factory prices

P grades are around €4.55/kg, with up to €4.65/kg reported where mixed loads include O grades.

The strength of the mart trade for culls is forcing factories to keep some way in step with the live trade.

Young bulls appear to have stabilised around €5.50/kg for Us with Rs on €5.40/kg and Os at €5.40/kg.

However, once you don’t overdo the number of Os when combined with Rs, you should be able to get the entire lot into €5.40/kg.

Friesian bull flat prices continue to operate from €5.20-5.25/kg.

Flat prices for dairy-bred Angus bullocks and heifers remain at €5.50-5.60/kg.

Flat prices don’t suit everyone, and nor does going to the mart, with the Department’s beef price watch app reporting that top prices paid for R3- to R3+ heifers ranged from €5.91-6.30/kg for the week ending January 29, with the same-grading bullocks on €5.82-5.97/kg.

Getting those prices requires the factory to need cattle of exceptional consistency for a contract, and a good agent helps — the life of whom is sometimes trying.

The man at the other end of the factory agent’s phone was a dairy farmer; he wasn’t a regular customer of this factory but nonetheless he had just looked for €4.70/kg for Friesian O and P grade cull cows.

“The price is €4.50/kg across the board,” the rep said.

“But I can get €4.70/kg,” replied the farmer.

The agent paused, deciding not to give the obvious response which was “so why are you ringing me?”

Instead he said: “Paddy, your problem is you don’t seem to know when you’ve enough ate.”

Would you have given €4.70?” I asked. “I might, if they were all well-finished Os and I knew the man had bred balance into his herd” the agent said.

With dairying continuing to expand, getting a better balance between milk and beef genetics on dairy farms will be vital to beef production going forward.

It can’t all be about milk, or for that matter dairy-cross Angus. The good Friesian bullock that will pull the scales in the factory well down has dwindled to the point that today at marts they sell for €2.30-2.70/kg, while factory men are offering flat prices of €5.20-5.30/kg for their beef.