Beef quotes continue to edge upwards, with increased appetite for all classes of stock. In-spec steers and heifers are up 5-10c/kg on last week’s prices at €3.45-€3.50/kg and there is also an increased demand for cows.

Factory agents are reporting very little cattle left in sheds and a tightening of supply coming in for May and June.

With reduced killing capacity in the last six weeks, this wasn’t a problem, but increased demand will add more life to the trade. It is likely throughput will continue to remain under pressure for the next few months, with many farmers opting to let forward store cattle out to grass.

The sharp drop-off in throughput has been experienced across all categories, but the greatest reduction has been with young bulls, where throughput has almost halved on last year’s level. Finishers are responding to low margins and marketing challenges and choosing to exit bull beef production.

There have been 6,408 young bulls processed in the last three weeks, compared to 12,150 this time last year. Young bulls are generally a safe way to maintain throughput at this time of year, but a switch away from specialist young bull production is likely to cause a dip in cattle supply around May/June time.

There has been a marked turnaround in overall beef throughput in the last three weeks, with factories running at reduced capacity and the kill reducing by 21,016/head on the corresponding three-week period in 2019.

The overall cattle kill is back 30,460 head in 2020, compared to 2019 figures.