The factory lamb price cuts totalling up to €2/kg, or €40/head, in recent weeks have finally ceased. While a couple of plants reduced base quotes by 15c/kg to 20c/kg over the weekend, the fact that other plants held quotes steady has helped to provide some well-needed stability to the trade this week.
The factory lamb price cuts totalling up to €2/kg, or €40/head, in recent weeks have finally ceased.
While a couple of plants reduced base quotes by 15c/kg to 20c/kg over the weekend, the fact that other plants held quotes steady has helped to provide some well-needed stability to the trade this week.
Base quotes at the lower end of the market are in the region of €7/kg for quality-assured (QA) lambs for Thursday, while at the higher end of the market opening quotes for QA lambs range from €7.10/kg to €7.20/kg in the main.
Regular sellers and groups are securing returns of €7.25/kg to €7.30/kg with higher prices quoted where conformation bonuses are added in.
At the time of going to print on Wednesday, IFA sheep chair Adrian Gallagher was leading a delegation to meetings with factory chiefs with further meetings organised for Thursday.
Gallagher said the cuts of upwards of €40/head in recent weeks will fuel an exodus of ewes from the sector with lambing flocks not benefitting from record high hogget prices.
He called on the food regulator to address the lack of transparency in the food supply chain for sheepmeat while also highlighting the need for greater transparency on factory prices.
The price cuts in Northern Ireland have also stopped with factories forced to raise quotes by 10p/kg to £5.60/kg (€6.77/kg) for Thursday.
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