Another week has passed and still there is no further clarification as to what Brexit will have in store for beef price come January 1, 2021. It has come to a stage where a number of processing plants are planning their kills on a day-by-day bases rather than a weekly plan.

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Keeping this in mind, some plants are still content to plough on with kills until Wednesday (December 23) this week.

Next week, most plants are scheduled to re-open on Tuesday (December 29). It has been heard that some plants were planning re-open on Monday (December 28) to increase kills before the Brexit deadline. However, given the issues with shipping consignments in recent days, these plans may be scrapped.

In terms of price this week, as much as farmers would love to receive a Christmas bonus for their cattle, there is not much change compared to last week.

Steers continue to be offered from €3.70-3.75/kg – with €3.75/kg available for heifers again.

Processors are still valuing under-16-month-old bulls at €3.65/kg on the grid – with under-24-month-old bulls priced from €3.45-3.60/kg for O-grades, €3.70/kg for R-grades and €3.80/kg for U-grades.

Prices for cows are still holding strong at €3.30 for U-grades, with more money on the table for farmers who are willing to negotiate. R-grades are priced at €3.20/kg, O-grades at €3.00/kg and P-grades are accepting €2.90/kg generally.

Beef Kill

For the week ending December 13, it was reported that a total of 35,702 head of cattle were slaughtered. This had experienced a weekly rise of 1,302 head from the previous week.

The total kill figures for 2020 to date have continued to race ahead of 2019 levels.

Up to December 13, a total of 1,695,208 head of cattle (excluding veal) had been processed – this is a rise of close to 1% on last year’s total kill for the same period.

Steers achieved the highest category of kills for the same week as they noted a figured of 12,142 head. So far this year, there has been an increase of 61,404 head of steers processed compared to last year – a main contributing factor for this are farmers’ movements away from bull-beef finishing.

Speaking of bull-beef systems, there has been a drop of 68,704 head of young bulls slaughtered this year to date in comparison to 2019.

The total for heifers killed in 2020 has tallied to 500,773 head to date, which is a yearly increase of 10,925 head.

For the week ending December 13, the improved quotes offered for cows lead to the weekly number being processed amounting to 8,639 head – this was a rise of 589 head from the previous week.

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