The Irish factory cattle supply is remaining firm despite much talk about tight supplies, latest Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) beef kill figures show.
In the week ending Sunday, December 1, just over 39,400 cattle were processed at DAFM-approved factories.
Supply has remained relatively steady over the past three consecutive weeks in contrast to last year when cattle supplies dropped off into November.
The graph below illustrates the overall weekly beef kill in the past 12 weeks of this year versus last year:
The cumulative cattle supply to date this year is running over 35,000 head above last year despite Bord Bia projections forecasting supplies to ball below 2023 levels by year end.
As the table below indicates, cow and heifer kill numbers have increased this year but steer and young bull supplies have fallen off.
The table below details the beef kill composition for the week ending Sunday, December 1 , versus the same week of last year and the cumulative beef kill this year versus last year:
Type Week ending
Dec 1, 2024Equivalent
Last YearCumulative
2024Cumulative
2023Young Bulls 2,188 2,852 97,508 107,535 Bulls 419 442 26,711 26,203 Steers 13,344 12,747 641,235 650,639 Cows 11,212 11,596 410,158 381,719 Heifers 12,266 10,350 480,421 454,638 Total 39,429 37,987 1,656,033 1,620,734
While cattle supplies overall have increased to date this year, carcass weights have continued to fall for the first three quarters of the year with poor weather conditions in early 2024 as well as the growing dairy influence on the beef kill attributing to this trend.
The strong supplies of cattle into the final quarter of this year are arriving at a time when demand for beef is remaining extremely high with prices at record levels.
Procurement staff are expecting continued strong demand for beef into early 2026 at least and are concerned about supplies of finished cattle into the first quarter of the new year.