Beef prices remain steady at the start of the week, with factories quoting €3.85/kg for steers and €3.95/kg for heifers, but 5ckg more than this is generally being paid.

Young bulls are being quoted at €3.85/kg on the grid and it is difficult to get more than this, while €3.80/kg for Rs and €3.90/kg for Us is the going rate for bulls up to 24 months.

Cows

The cow trade is, if anything, a little firmer, with plenty of interest in good well-fleshed cows. The quote on R grading cows is €3.30/kg, but specialist cow finishers are getting anything from 5c/kg 10c/kg more.

O grading cows are being quoted at €3.10/kg and P grading cows with flesh are being quoted at €3.00/kg. Again, plenty more can be negotiated and we were told of one factory paying €3.20/kg for a mix of O and P grading cows.

Difficult beef trade

The arrival of rain in most parts over the weekend should take some of the distress culling of cows out, but there are still plenty of these in the system and they are not wanted by factories.

It is a weak enough beef trade, as August usually is with factories reporting that they are stockpiling more than they would like, with steak meat being a particularly difficult trade.

The price gap with Britain has widened to 34c/kg on R3 grading steers, though prices are lower on the continent.

Steady in the North also

In the North, Dunbia didn’t kill any cattle today, concentrating on lambs instead. Quotes are running at £3.50/kg to £3.52/kg (€4.13/kg to €4.17/kg, including VAT) for U3 steers and heifers.

Not so many deals are available, certainly not on steers, but there is some more flexibility for a batch of good heifers. Cows are being quoted at £2.70/kg (€3.19/kg) for O grades and £2.80/kg (€3.30/kg) for R grades.

Exchange rate on Monday evening was €1=89.2p and VAT is added to NI prices at 5.3%.