The beef trade remains under negative price pressure with steers trading in general on a base of €4/kg, while heifers are moving at €4.10/kg. Prices are running about 5c/kg behind the corresponding period in 2017 with last week’s kill of 33,889 on par.

IFA president Joe Healy has accused factories of hijacking the drought conditions to cut beef prices. “Factories are taking advantage of the drought conditions and imposing unjustified price cuts ahead of the market. Over the last four weeks, prices have been cut by 20c/kg or up to €80 per head, which is the profit margin in most cases.”

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Beef trends: producers set stall at €4.00/kg