The 2018 beef kill figure looks set to be the highest since 1999.

The latest figures show factory throughput for the first 50 weeks of 2018 stood at 1.75m head, an increase of 56,348 head on the same period in 2017.

The 2018 kill was already running over 80,000 head higher than the five-year average and a massive 153,287 head above the 10-year average. The next highest kill of 1.78m was recorded in 2001, with the largest throughput in the Bord Bia online database, which stretches back 24 years, recorded at 1,985,019 head in 1999.

The higher throughput levels have been fuelled by continued expansion in the dairy herd and lower live exports in 2016 and 2017.

The dairy herd at approximately 1.4m head is approaching its highest level since the mid-1980s when the introduction of milk quotas reduced dairy numbers and fuelled suckler herd expansion from 400,000 cows to 1.2m cows in the space of 10 years.

While the suckler herd is declining, expansion in the dairy herd is occurring at a far greater rate, with more than 430,000 extra dairy calf birth registrations since 2010.

Meanwhile, live exports increased by about 50,000 head in 2018, with the increase underpinned by calf exports rising by over 55,000 head.