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Irish farmers have watched with envy prices received by their counterparts in Britain over recent weeks.
While the strength of sterling is a factor in explaining the present gap with Ireland, another key factor is the strength of demand for beef in Britian. This is reflected in the latest Kantar data for the twelve weeks up to 1st September.
This shows that British supermarket shoppers bought more beef and paid a higher price for it than they did in the previous quarter. According to Kantar the volume of all beef sold increased by 1,969 tonnes, an increase of 1.6% while money spent on buying beef was up by £1.1bn, a 4.1% increase.
Burgers, grills and processed meat showed the biggest increase in volume sales, up 8% and 6.8% respectively. All categories sowed some level of volume increase with the exception of roasts where volumes fell by 7.5%.
Lamb sales
It was also a strong quarter for lamb sales in Britain with volumes up a healthy 4.1% or 606 tonnes while shoppers spent 10.1% more on lamb purchases because of higher prices.
Higer volumes were driven by strong performance in sales of slow cook or sous vide products, up 31%, diced/cubed lamb up 20% and burgers/grills were up 16.3%.
On the other hand, steak sales were down 10.7%, chops down 5% and roasting joints showed a slight decrease of less than 1%.
Usually when consumer prices increase, shoppers adjust purchase trends to buy less volume with the ambition of spending the same money. In the most recent quarter, British supermarket shoppers have actually increased their purchases even though lamb was more expensive.
This is encouraging for British and indeed Irish sheep farmers especially as it doesn’t appear to be one quarter in isolation. Looking at Kantar’s 52 week data for lamb sales, volumes have increased year on year by 4.8% while prices in the same period increased by 6.7%.
Imports and exports
As with the US on beef trade, the UK is quite unique when it comes to lamb imports and exports as they are both the third largest importer and third largest exporter of sheep meat in the world.
Up to the end of July this year, the UK exported 45,749 tonnes of sheep meat including offal which was down on the 48,997 tonnes exported in the same period last year. Imports were 46,354 tonnes, a substantial increase of almost 10,000 tonnes on the 33,888 tonnes imported in the same period in 2023.
Imports from New Zealand increased by over 9,000 tonnes while Australia have grown their market share by over 3,000 tonnes to 7,285 tonnes, benefiting from the UK Australia trade deal.
Total UK beef exports including offal to July 2024 were up almost 10,000 tonnes at 85,143 tonnes and imports were also up 10,000 tonnes to 177,675 tonnes.
Ireland is the main supplier with 73,164 tonnes of fresh beef, up from 67,307 to July last year. While still small, Australian supplies showed a massive increase, up from just 473 tonnes in 2023 to 2,397 tonnes to July this year as did New Zealand, up from 115 tonnes to 1,725 tonnes.
Comment
This Kantar data, published by AHDB the levy board in England shows that consumer demand for both beef and lamb is strong and reversing the more typical trend of higher prices leading to lower volumes being bought.
This has been reflected in exceptional prices paid to UK farmers for their stock and it has been a strong market for Irish exports though at a lower price point.
Australia and New Zealand have also benefited from the strong demand, with both establishing a foothold in the UK beef market which was opened to them by the post Brexit trade deals.
New Zealand had already all the quota it needed to sell lamb to the UK but Australia have now joined them as a significant supplier as a result of the trade deal making their product much more competitive.
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