The Scottish beef price is stuck at £4.05/kg for an R grade steer for another week. But tight supply is leading many to think prices will rise next week.

The official Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) Scottish beef price for an R4L steer is priced at £4.11/kg, which is 2p/kg down. Same-grade heifers were £4.13/kg which is down 3p on the week. The young bull price rose 1p to £4/kg deadweight.

Finished cows were reported by AHDB at £3.00/kg for an 0-4, which is down 2p/kg on the week. The liveweight price for cull cows for Scotland is £1.47/kg at the moment which is up 1p/kg.

Lanark Mart sold 102 cattle at its fortnightly sale

Thainstone sold 591 store cattle where steers averaged £2.44/kg and heifers averaged £2.34/kg. United Auctions sold 429 store cattle, with steers averaging £2.33/kg and heifers averaging £2.24/kg. They also sold 21 dairy steers for an average of £1.83/kg and 48 young bulls for £2.26/kg.

Lanark Mart sold 102 cattle at its fortnightly sale. Steers averaged £2.18/kg with a top of £1,405 for a 670kg Charolais. Heifers averaged £2.11/kg, with a top price of £1,370 for a 652kg Simmental.

The sale saw heifers with calves at foot selling for between £2,500 and £2,600, with cows £100-£200 cheaper per outfit

Huntly Mart held a dispersal sale of 207 mainly Simmental-cross breeding cattle from Cushnie Farms, Craigievar. The sale saw heifers with calves at foot selling for between £2,500 and £2,600, with cows £100-£200 cheaper per outfit.

Lamb price

Scottish abattoirs are paying £6.90/kg for new-season lamb and £5.30/kg for old-season hoggets. The live trade was £3.22/kg for new-season lamb, down 8p/kg. Numbers are still tight.

This week Ayr Mart was selling prime lambs at £2.98/kg, down 35p/kg, Lanark averaged £3.11/kg, down 25p/kg, and St Boswells £3.03/kg, down 38p/kg.

Last Thursday, United Auctions sold 1,333 spring lambs for an average of £3.11/kg, down 16p/kg ,and 664 prime hoggets to an average of £2.22/kg, which is down 1p/kg. Top price was for a new-season Beltex lamb which made £170.

Thainstone sold over 250 ewes and lambs last week at its end-of-season sale

The AHDB price for across GB for last week was £6.63/kg for an R3L carcase lamb, which is down 3p/kg for nearly 40,000 killed.

The ewe price in Scotland is £99/head, which is down £3 on the week for just over 3,600 sold.

Thainstone sold over 250 ewes and lambs last week at its end-of-season sale. The average was £73/life, the same as the previous week.

Sheepmeat production is up 8% in the EU27 for the first quarter of 2021. Higher slaughterings in Italy, France and Spain have driven this increase. Spain and France continue to be the largest producers inside the EU27, accounting for 28% and 21% of total production. During Q1, Spain increased production by 12% year on year and France was up 20%. In May, the average price in Spain was €5.50/kg and in France €6.50/kg.