As reported in this week's Irish Farmers Journal, farmer frustration has been increasing at the sustained period of factory price falls.
The fact that these falls are from record high prices matters little to the farmers who filled sheds with cattle to finish last autumn when prices were at their peak.
The factory view is that they haven’t been able to sell beef in the market place at the price they have paid for cattle. They also claim that price increases over the past year have been more driven by scarcity of cattle than the demand for beef.
Fewer cattle numbers have also the knock-on effect of a higher processing cost per unit and over recent weeks there has been announcements by ABP and Kepak on plans to reduce their further processing capacity.
Many abattoirs have reduced throughput by killing a day or two less per week and this has caused a delay for farmers wanting to get cattle killed and enabled factory buyers to get the number of cattle they want for less money.
Beef markets
There is no published information that gives farmers any insight on what profit - if any - factories made with the rising cattle prices in 2025.
However, there is some interesting information published on what factories pay for cattle bought in the countries where the majority of Irish beef exports are sold.
Bord Bia produces a weekly update that benchmarks what is paid for prime cattle in Ireland with what is paid for the same type cattle in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden.
An aggregated value is calculated by Bord Bia based on the proportion of Irish beef that is exported to each of these markets and is published in the Business of Farming section of the Irish Farmers Journal every week.
It is described by Bord Bia as the 'Prime Irish composite price v prime export benchmark price', though this is shortened in the Irish Farmers Journal to Bord Bia beef market tracking prime animals.
As Figure 1 shows, this time last year, Irish farmgate steer, heifer and young bull prices were tracking closely to what was being paid for cattle by factories in our main export markets.
Then, from the second quarter until late in 2025, the Irish price moved well ahead of what was paid in export markets.
The gap closed towards the end of the year and from 10 January this year, the Irish price fell below the export benchmark price and since then the gap has continued to widen.
At 7 March, the Irish composite prime price was €7/kg, the export benchmark prime was €7.24/kg.
Agri-Food Regulator prices
There is also information published by the Agri-Food Regulator, updated weekly on composite values received by Irish factories for fore and hindquarter beef, as well as a mince beef price.
As Figure 2 shows, these prices fluctuate very little week by week. This makes sense, as factories are often locked into prices over a longer period while the cattle they buy fluctuate from week to week.
This is similar to retail prices for UK supermarkets – these are captured by Worldpanel by Numerator UK and published by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and show a considerable time lag between higher farmgate cattle prices and higher retail prices.
Comment – factory profits or greater competition in market place?
Several weeks of falling beef prices and delays in getting cattle booked into factories for slaughter has created concern among farmers.
This is made worse by the inevitability of higher fuel and fertiliser costs arising from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The message from factories recently is that they are only prepared to buy cattle if the price is right for them.
The Bord Bia export benchmark price chart in Figure 1 shows that factories did compete aggressively with each other in 2025 to the extent that they were paying more than what farmers were getting for their cattle in the markets where our beef was being exported to.
This trend has reversed since early January this year, but, without access to factory accounts, we don’t know if this is generating higher factory profits or if they are being squeezed in their markets by other imported beef.
As reported in this week's Irish Farmers Journal, farmer frustration has been increasing at the sustained period of factory price falls.
The fact that these falls are from record high prices matters little to the farmers who filled sheds with cattle to finish last autumn when prices were at their peak.
The factory view is that they haven’t been able to sell beef in the market place at the price they have paid for cattle. They also claim that price increases over the past year have been more driven by scarcity of cattle than the demand for beef.
Fewer cattle numbers have also the knock-on effect of a higher processing cost per unit and over recent weeks there has been announcements by ABP and Kepak on plans to reduce their further processing capacity.
Many abattoirs have reduced throughput by killing a day or two less per week and this has caused a delay for farmers wanting to get cattle killed and enabled factory buyers to get the number of cattle they want for less money.
Beef markets
There is no published information that gives farmers any insight on what profit - if any - factories made with the rising cattle prices in 2025.
However, there is some interesting information published on what factories pay for cattle bought in the countries where the majority of Irish beef exports are sold.
Bord Bia produces a weekly update that benchmarks what is paid for prime cattle in Ireland with what is paid for the same type cattle in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden.
An aggregated value is calculated by Bord Bia based on the proportion of Irish beef that is exported to each of these markets and is published in the Business of Farming section of the Irish Farmers Journal every week.
It is described by Bord Bia as the 'Prime Irish composite price v prime export benchmark price', though this is shortened in the Irish Farmers Journal to Bord Bia beef market tracking prime animals.
As Figure 1 shows, this time last year, Irish farmgate steer, heifer and young bull prices were tracking closely to what was being paid for cattle by factories in our main export markets.
Then, from the second quarter until late in 2025, the Irish price moved well ahead of what was paid in export markets.
The gap closed towards the end of the year and from 10 January this year, the Irish price fell below the export benchmark price and since then the gap has continued to widen.
At 7 March, the Irish composite prime price was €7/kg, the export benchmark prime was €7.24/kg.
Agri-Food Regulator prices
There is also information published by the Agri-Food Regulator, updated weekly on composite values received by Irish factories for fore and hindquarter beef, as well as a mince beef price.
As Figure 2 shows, these prices fluctuate very little week by week. This makes sense, as factories are often locked into prices over a longer period while the cattle they buy fluctuate from week to week.
This is similar to retail prices for UK supermarkets – these are captured by Worldpanel by Numerator UK and published by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and show a considerable time lag between higher farmgate cattle prices and higher retail prices.
Comment – factory profits or greater competition in market place?
Several weeks of falling beef prices and delays in getting cattle booked into factories for slaughter has created concern among farmers.
This is made worse by the inevitability of higher fuel and fertiliser costs arising from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The message from factories recently is that they are only prepared to buy cattle if the price is right for them.
The Bord Bia export benchmark price chart in Figure 1 shows that factories did compete aggressively with each other in 2025 to the extent that they were paying more than what farmers were getting for their cattle in the markets where our beef was being exported to.
This trend has reversed since early January this year, but, without access to factory accounts, we don’t know if this is generating higher factory profits or if they are being squeezed in their markets by other imported beef.
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