Despite the doom and gloom surrounding the lamb trade last week, tighter supplies look to be working in farmers’ favour.

Last week, AgriLand reported that spring lamb prices had eased by 20-40c/kg. However, some processors have moved to ease and even reverse these cuts in order to secure numbers.

Kepak Athleague is currently offering a base price of 600c/kg for spring lambs, while Kildare Chilling is starting negotiations at 590c/kg. Both of these prices exclude Quality Assurance bonuses of 5c/kg and 10c/kg respectively.

The two Irish Country Meats’ plants, located in Camolin and Navan, are working off a lower base and are offering farmers 580c/kg for new-season lambs.

Despite the slight uplift in the lamb trade, the hogget market continues to remain on par with last week and buyers are quoting 480-500c/kg for 2016-born sheep.

Some variation can also be witnessed in the ewe market, as factory quotes are ranging from lows of 250c/kg right up to 270c/kg in certain locations.

Spring lamb quotes:
  • Kildare Chilling: 590c/kg + 10c QA.
  • Kepak Athleague: 600c/kg + 5c QA.
  • ICM Camolin: 580c/kg + 10c QA.
  • ICM Navan: 580c/kg + 10c QA.

Supplies

Some 59,991 sheep were slaughtered in Department of Agriculture approved sheepmeat export plants during the week ending June 4. This is a fall of 416 head or 0.7% on week earlier levels.

Spring lambs accounted for approximately 75% of this throughput and supplies of these animals climbed by 8,089 head or 22% on the week before.

However, there was a noticeable drop in ewe, ram and hogget slaughterings. In total, some 7,082 ewes and rams where processed – a drop of 22.2%. Hogget numbers also declined and just 8,019 head were slaughtered during the week ending June 4.

Official figures also show that the cumulative sheep kill for the year stands at approximately 1.11 million head – an increase of 125,006 head on the corresponding period in 2016.

Main markets

The British sheep trade remained strong on the back of good demand last week, Bord Bia reports, but higher numbers were brought forward for slaughter.

In addition, the SQQ live price for lamb in England and Wales made the equivalent of around 603c/kg during the week.

In France, Bord Bia says, the trade remained steady. But strong supplies of imported lambs continue to be seen on the market.

A number of retailers also held promotions last week and these focused on domestically-produced legs of lamb.