A backlog of almost 60,000 head of cattle remains in the system, following the events of the summer and autumn – with beef kills in recent weeks doing little to clear this, according to senior manager of the meat and livestock team in Bord Bia, Joe Burke.
Speaking at a Teagasc beef and sheep seminar, titled ‘Practical Advice for a Challenging Time’, at the Tullamore Court Hotel, Co. Offaly, last week on Wednesday, November 13, Burke explained:
“Overall, for the year to date, we’re looking at a reduction of almost 60,000 in the number of cattle slaughtered.
“There has been a dramatic reduction in the number of steers and in the number of cull cows slaughtered – and the number of heifers has gone up slightly, as has the number of young bulls slaughtered.
But overall there, coming into the middle of August, we were actually up by 40,000 head in terms of cattle slaughterings; and now we’re down by almost 60,000.
“So a lot of that would have been the impact of the protest activity in August and September, when slaughterings would have been significantly depressed.”
Continuing, the Bord Bia manager said that the most recent figures show that by the cattle kill over the last few weeks “haven’t quite caught up to last year’s level” for the time of year.
He explained that, for the week November 3 to November 9, the beef kill was approximately 38,000. By comparison, the kill was 39,000 for the same week last year.
That would reflect a bit less demand in the case of the meat plants; they’re not pushing as hard with regard to their capacity and try to push out numbers; that also reflects slightly depressed market conditions and less demand in the market.
“If there was greater demand you would expect that they would be pushing more aggressively and killing higher numbers of cattle.
“[It’s] not really eating into that backlog in any significant way anyway as you can see from the figures over the last few weeks.”
Beef price
Commenting on Irish beef prices in comparison to UK and EU equivalents, Burke highlighted that from April to the start of July, the Irish R3 steer price gap closed considerably between the Irish and the UK price.
“At times the gap closed to less than 10c/kg. On average, however, throughout the year the gap was about 25c/kg. But both of those prices are back significantly in comparison with 2018,” he said.
On average, in fact, the Irish cattle price is back by 6.5% and similarly the UK price in euro terms is back by nearly 7%.
Continuing, he noted that the EU R3 young bull price, which is the main category of beef that Irish beef would be competing with in markets such as France or Italy or Germany, suffered less of a decline than Irish and UK prices, noting that it fell by about 5% compared to 2018 figures, but has rallied somewhat in recent weeks.
“That EU average young bull price has actually recovered a little bit and at the moment would be sitting at about 10c/kg ahead of the equivalent Irish R3 steer price. That would be a sum-up really of the price comparison at the moment.
The Irish R3 steer excluding VAT would be at approximately €3.45/kg; the continental European young bull price, again for an R3 excluding VAT, is around 10c/kg ahead of that.
The manager said that in recent weeks, in part through a recovery in sterling conversion rates as well as a slight improvement in price, “the UK R3 steer price has recovered somewhat to about €3.80/kg – about 35c/kg ahead of the equivalent Irish price”.