Tighter cattle supplies look likely in April, May and June, according to Kepak's Jonathan Forbes.

"Our market intelligence would point to a tighter supply and increased demand, which are positive from a beef farmer point of view," he said.

"We have seen a lot of cattle finished in the last three months that would not usually be finished until March or April. These cattle were housed during the summer months and fed earlier, hence finished earlier.

"Our larger feeders are very cautious at the moment, with some just running at 60% capacity. Brexit has caused a lot of uncertainty out there and finishers don't want to overexpose themselves and you can't blame them for that," said Forbes.

Brexit has caused a lot of uncertainty out there and finishers don't want to overexpose themselves and you can't blame them for that

EU production is also forecast to contract in 2019, so it all points to a more positive year for beef trade.

The last quarter of 2018 has seen a difficult trading environment with a lot of extra beef out there.

EU beef production was up 1.7% in 2018 and this, coupled with higher imports into the EU of South American beef, has compounded the problem, with manufacturing beef being particular harder to shift.

"Manufacturing beef is back by €0.30-€0.40/kg and 40% of the carcass is manufacturing beef," said Forbes. Hides are also back by €25/animal.

Jonathan Forbes

Speaking on dairy beef, Jonathan said that dairy beef ticks a lot of boxes for their customers once it's over 280kg, grades an O= and is well fleshed.

"However, we have built our business around having a strong suckler herd.

"Suckler beef give us a great selling point when we go to the market and if we didn't have suckler beef, it would be hard to differentiate ourselves from other countries," he said.