Farmers bear brunt of beef backlog

Farmers are bearing the brunt of a significant backlog of cattle to be slaughtered.

Those with aged 30 months of age and deemed overweight by factories are worst affected as factories prioritise steers and heifers under 30 months of age.

As the graph illustrates, there were 95,573 head fewer animals processed during the eight-week period between factory gates protests commencing in late July until the beef talks concluded in mid-September.

Factory agents maintain that the backlog is not as large as 95,000, because they say there are not that many cattle ready for immediate processing. However, there is still a significant backlog remaining.

Prior to the protests, the cumulative kill for 2019 was running 43,449 head higher than 2018.

Last year’s November throughput maxed out at a steady average of 40,113 head for a five-week period, before tailing off sharply in the run in to Christmas. Last week’s beef kill of 34,388 head was the first week since early August when weekly throughput exceeded the comparable weekly kill figure in 2018.

The extra 577 head processed in the four days following the Halloween bank holiday, suggests that factories could marginally increase throughput.

This would be a well-needed boost for farmers and would tie into factories starting to fill orders for the Christmas trade. However, it will not solve the backlog still in the system since factory protests in August and September.

Northern Ireland

Meanwhile, a tightening in supplies in Northern Ireland is slowly adding more life to the trade.

Quotes have increased from a range of £3.12/kg to £3.20/kg (€3.62/kg to €3.71/kg excl VAT) a week to 10 days ago to £3.16/kg to £3.20/kg this week, with plants trying to limit upward movement at higher prices.