Speaking to Agriland at the 2024 National Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Co. Laois, sheepmeat and livestock sector manager of Bord Bia Seamus McMenamin provided an overview of the sheep trade in 2024 to-date, and offered his views on an outlook for the remainder of the year.
McMenamin began by explaining the beginning of the year, and how 2024 began in terms of how many sheep were available.
“At the start of the year it did look like there were more sheep in the system, but it actually transpired that the hogget kill was back by about a 100,000 head.
“That tighter supply situation led to the very strong prices that we seen in and around Easter.
“We had very tight supplies here, and tight supplies north of the border and in England, so it all fed in to a very strong trade just in around the Muslim festivals and around Easter. That trend has sort of continued as the year has gone on,” he explained.
Regarding the tight supplies, McMenamin said that a difficult lambing period and a reduced ewe flock of 3% has “fed in” to a smaller lamb crop.
While he said there is currently an “increase in the lamb kill in the last few weeks,” McMenamin said that “overall the 2024 born lambs are back by about 88,000 head for the year to-date.
“It’s been a difficult grass growing year too and it’s slowed down the supply of lambs, and the factories are very keen for fit lambs at the minute,” he added.
Unprecedented sheepmeat prices
Reflecting on the record hogget prices that were seen earlier this year, McMenamin said that they were €2/kg higher than the previous records set.
“We were up in around the €9/kg mark and previously we’ve seen very good increases in the last few years but I think the previous one was in around the €7/kg mark.
“They were prices that were unprecedented really and it was driven just purely by a firm demand and those tighter supplies,” he said.
On the topic of this years peak spring lamb prices that hit €10/kg at the end of April, McMenamin said this was due to their tight availability.
McMenamin said: “Whenever those early spring lambs came out they were in such tight supply that there was real competition for them on the market, so we’ve seen that continue just with the tightness in the lamb supply.
“If I look at the UK, their weekly kill has been back 10-12% and that’s kept a floor under our price and also had the secondary impact of of moving lambs from Northern Ireland across to GB because they qualify for the Red Tractor and taking them out of our system which is then further fed into the tight supply situation,” he said.
Outlook for the remainder of 2024
Regarding the outlook for the sheepmeat trade for the remaining months of 2024, McMenamin said he would be “relatively positive”.
He stated that spring lambs are “around the €7.30/kg-7.40/kg quoted price at the minute” which he said is “about €1/kg ahead of where we were last year”.
“If I look at the European forecast, they’re talking about a 5% decline over the whole year, but in the second half of the year in particular that’s where that decline is going to be, just with their production system as an earlier sort of lambing date.
“To our advantage as well, you look at Australia and New Zealand, they’re seeing contracting flocks at the minute and they’re in their off-season, so very tight supplies of lamb.
“So their prices are increasing and ours are holding stable so, it’s really narrowed their competitiveness on the European markets, which is sort of working to our benefit.
“We’ve seen a bit of an increase in this volume of product coming in but it tends to be frozen cheaper product that coming to Europe.
“Overall I’d be relatively positive about the outlook for the rest of the year,” McMenamin said.