The price paid by factories to Irish farmers has been on a downward spiral for several months with the R3 grade steer now worth over €1/kg less than this time last year, as shown in Figure 1.

On 24 May 2025, the price reported for this grade was €7.48/kg; this year on the 30 May, the value for the same animal was reported at €6.44/kg. Both these values exclude VAT.

There is plenty of data showing demand for beef in the UK and other export markets being down this year compared with last year, and factories are believed to be carrying large stocks of unsold beef.

There are no official figures available in Ireland on factory stock levels, but we can get an indication of the value factories receive for the beef they sell from the composite value for forequarter, hindquarter and 5% fat mince in 500g packs.

This is published each week by the Agri-Food regulator and is calculated by the Department of Agriculture from prices reported by ABP, Dawn Meats, Kepak and Liffey meats.

Cattle and beef values

As can also be seen in Figure 1, at the beginning of last year when the price reported for R3 steers was €5.64, the forequarter value was €5.11/kg, the hindquarter was €7.41/kg and the 500g mince pack was €8.76/kg. By the week ending 12 April 2025, the price reported for R3 steers peaked at €7.73/kg and in the same week the composite factory values had increased to €6.35/kg for forequarter, €9.15/kg for hindquarter and €11.45/kg for the mince.

If we look at this price at the end of April this year, we can see that the forequarter value of €6.76/kg is actually higher than it was in the same week last year while the value of hindquarter has fallen by 36c/kg to €8.82/kg and the value of the 5% fat 500g mince back is down from €11.24/kg at the end of April last year to €10.83/kg at the same point this year. It is also clear in figure 1 that there was a considerable lag in the factory selling price increase compared with how quickly the farmgate price rose in the first quarter of last year. While there was a time delay and the rate of increase was slower, the price factories were getting continued to increase long after the prices paid to farmers had peaked.

Also, this year while the composite factory prices have fallen , the rate of decline has been much slower than the rate at which cattle prices have dropped.

Factory selling price explanation

While shoppers are likely to recognise what a 500g pack of mince with 5% fat content looks like, the beef forequarter and beef hindquarter terms don’t mean anything as they are never referred to in either the butchers or supermarkets.

What they are is a combination of the prices received by ABP, Dawn, Kepak and Liffey for all forequarter and hind-quarter cuts, aggregated to produce a single value. Even though neither term refers to specific cuts of beef, the combined price does give an indication of the direction of travel for prices received by beef processors.

The calculation is carried out by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine from sales information supplied by the four participating processors as required by the EU (Market Transparency) Regulations 2021.

The factories agreed that the Agri-Food Regulator could have access to and publish this information

What is clear from the published data is that the price paid by factories for cattle increased at an unprecedented rate in the first four months of last year while the selling price they were able to secure from their beef sales also rose, but more slowly.

However, they were able to maintain higher selling prices from the market long after cattle prices peaked. While they have declined this year, the rate of decline has been nowhere near as great as that seen by farmers. Therefore the greatest volatility is felt by beef producers. Also, while we know what factories paid for cattle and have an idea of selling price through the aggregated composite forequarter and hindquarter plus mince prices, we have no insight of the impact on factory profitability.

The perception is that when cattle prices increased rapidly, factory profits took a hit while the much cheaper cattle prices of this year suggests greater potential for factory profitability. However, without published financial information, this cannot be verified.