The beef trade remains in a steady position this week, with a higher supply balanced by good retail demand for the busy Christmas holiday period.
Bullocks are working off a €6.60/kg base price, while heifers are being quoted at €6.70/kg in many locations.
There are some farmers able to squeeze the higher base price for mixes of loads of bullocks and heifers.
There are also a number of agents trying to buy bullocks at €6.55/kg and heifers at €6.65/kg, but these quotes are able to buy very few cattle.
Factory agents remain anxious for cattle, with many looking ahead for the next two to three weeks to make sure adequate supplies are coming their way.
Bonuses of up to 20c/kg are still on the table for in-spec Aberdeen Angus bullocks and heifers, with all-in flat prices around €6.90/kg this week.
Bulls are also solid this week, with under-24-month U grading bulls coming in at €6.70/kg to €6.90/kg, with R grading bulls being bought at €6.60/kg to €6.70/kg.
Under-16-month bulls are working off a base price of €6.50/kg to €6.70/kg. This is before the 12c/kg is applied for in-spec bulls.
Cows
Cows are also in demand, with specialist cow finishers with U grading cows able to squeeze €6.40/kg to €6.50/kg out of the market for well-fleshed heavy U grading cows.
R grading cows are being bought at €6.20/kg to €6.40/kg. O grading cows are working off a quote of €6.10/kg to €6.20/kg this week, with P+3 cows coming in at €6.00/kg, depending on weight and flesh cover.
Last week’s kill came in at 37,045 head, almost 6,000 more than the same week in 2025.
Last week was the first week of the year that numbers surpassed the 37,000 head mark, the highest recorded weekly kill in 2026.
The bullock category saw an extra 1,000 head processed last week. The cow kill took a big jump, with an extra 1,500 cows through the system last week. The young bull kill also saw a rise, with an extra 650 bulls processed last week.
Carcase weights have also continued to improve, with bullocks improving around 9kg when the same periods are compared, with heifers improving by about 6kg in the last 12 months.
This is being attributed to farmers keeping cattle longer and also better genetics, according to Bord Bia.
Lower global beef production is pointing to a floor in beef markets for 2027, with supplies tightening in many of the big producing countries such as Brazil and the USA.
Prices have steadied across the water this week, with no further increases being witnessed in the British trade.
Some of the smaller establishments have tried to pull prices a little this week, with some pointing to having enough cattle to get them for the Christmas peak kill period.
There is still 650p/kg (€8.18/kg incl VAT) on the table. This is back just 6p on the same week in 2025. A gap of over €1/kg or near €400/head on a 380kg carcase remains between the British and Irish prices.
The latest tracker data from Bord Bia puts the Irish price 31c/kg behind our main markets. The British market has also seen an increase in cow numbers in the last two weeks, with an extra 1,000 cows processed for the week ending 31 October.
Further afield, EU beef imports of Brazilian beef have fallen off a cliff after the ban was imposed on 3 September.
There were just 486t of Brazilian beef imported in September 2026, compared with 17,000t in September and 20,000t in August 2025.
Interestingly, the majority of the Brazilian beef imports went to Italy. There has been almost 90,000t of Brazilian beef imported to Europe so far in 2026.
