Winter finishers face a difficult six-month period, with Teagasc figures presented by Paul Crosson in Kilkenny Mart on Tuesday evening showing a beef price of up to €6/kg is required just to cover the cost of production in many winter finishing systems.

To add a €100/head margin over the cost of production, a beef price increase in the region of 30c/kg above this is required.

Beef prices hit record levels this summer when they broke the €5/kg mark, but a new record is now needed if there is to be a return for farmers in winter finishing systems this year.

25% lift needed

This means beef price needs to increase in the region of 25% to 30% between now and next spring. However, the average beef price lift between autumn and spring sits at just 5% over the past 10 years.

Speaking on the night, Kepak’s Jonathan Forbes said that while he could not predict the beef market, he had no reason to be negative on the overall outlook, both throughout the remainder of 2022 and the first half of 2023, with supply looking particularly tight from April to June next year.

When pressed by farmers in attendance over contracts for winter finishers in order to reduce some of the risk involved, Forbes stated that it was not the current position of Kepak to offer contracts to farmers.

He said that the company was willing to work with producers as much as possible and emphasised the importance of keeping in contact with processors at all times, but especially when stock are within 60 days of slaughter.