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Beef cost of production: Finishing
We present costing and performance insights for beef production youngstock finishing only, using Farmbench data.
What does the 2022/23 season tell us?
Looking to youngstock stores and finishers in Farmbench, for the 2022/23 season, the figures tell a story of higher cost of production overall for the middle 50%.
Cost of production rises were in most part contributed to by significant rises in forage and feed costs, as well as climbing overhead costs.
However, with higher total income for 2022/23, this outweighed the rises in cost of production for a slightly improved full economic net margin. However, overall, full economic net margins remain negative for the middle 50% and bottom 25% youngstock, for both stores and finishing.
Characteristics of top and bottom performing beef and sheep farms
Our study uses a statistical examination of the Farm Business Survey and a case study analysis to identify the key actions of top performers. The study also offers a list of considerations for ways in which beef and sheep farm businesses can improve.
Youngstock finishing only ranked by total economic margin, per liveweight kg of output
| Youngstock finishing only - cost of production | 2021/22 (Calving 2022) | 2022/23 (Calving 2023) | Change YOY for middle 50% | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 25% | Middle 50% | Bottom 25% | Top 25% | Middle 50% | Bottom 25% | |||
| KPIs | Cost of production (£/kg) | 2.20 | 2.38 | 4.38 | 2.26 | 2.65 | 3.43 | 11% |
| Daily liveweight gain (kg/day) | 0.86 | 0.91 | 0.78 | 0.65 | 0.89 | 0.94 | -2% | |
| Mortality (%) | 0.89 | 0.56 | 0.35 | 0.70 | 0.49 | 0.59 | -12% | |
| Enterprise details | Number sold/transferred/retained at closing | 162 | 186 | 26 | 269 | 173 | 51 | -7% |
| Total forage area allocated to enterprise (ha) | 44 | 43 | 19 | 39 | 33 | 28 | -22% | |
| Number of weeks housed (weeks) | 31 | 23 | 14 | 41 | 25 | 24 | 7% | |
| Technical performance | Age of opening and incoming cattle (days) | 348 | 388 | 428 | 476 | 413 | 407 | 6% |
| Liveweight of opening and incoming cattle (kg/hd) | 354.05 | 379.74 | 364.06 | 437.15 | 418.86 | 422.33 | 10% | |
| Liveweight of sold/transferred/retained at closing (kg/hd) | 542.29 | 542.42 | 512.69 | 570.02 | 585.01 | 567.02 | 8% | |
| Non-forage feed fed DM (kg/hd) | 1,233.57 | 617.04 | 607.81 | 908.40 | 674.04 | 571.21 | 9% | |
| Harvested forage fed DM (kg/hd) | 827.73 | 607.65 | 796.89 | 605.19 | 398.81 | 586.36 | -34% | |
| Weight produced per forage hectare (kg/ha) | 676.83 | 699.81 | 204.88 | 902.00 | 855.00 | 255.00 | 22% | |
| Income (£/kg) | Total income | 2.56 | 2.10 | 2.39 | 2.56 | 2.49 | 2.57 | 18% |
| Variable costs (£/kg) | Vet and medicine | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.04 | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.03 | -51% |
| Bedding | 0.03 | 0.05 | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0% | |
| Total variable costs excluding feed | 1.59 | 1.60 | 1.94 | 1.76 | 1.79 | 2.03 | 12% | |
| Purchased feed including minerals | 0.18 | 0.25 | 0.45 | 0.11 | 0.27 | 0.29 | 8% | |
| Purchased forage | 0.01 | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.00 | 0.01 | 0.01 | -55% | |
| Homegrown forage variable costs | 0.03 | 0.02 | 0.05 | 0.02 | 0.03 | 0.03 | 27% | |
| Total feed and forage costs | 0.22 | 0.35 | 0.53 | 0.25 | 0.40 | 0.42 | 15% | |
| Overhead costs (£/kg) | Total labour | 0.12 | 0.15 | 0.79 | 0.09 | 0.16 | 0.40 | 9% |
| Total administration costs | 0.02 | 0.03 | 0.15 | 0.02 | 0.03 | 0.07 | -2% | |
| Total machinery and equipment | 0.13 | 0.12 | 0.38 | 0.07 | 0.14 | 0.22 | 19% | |
| Total property and energy costs | 0.04 | 0.05 | 0.25 | 0.02 | 0.05 | 0.13 | 10% | |
| Total overheads | 0.39 | 0.43 | 1.92 | 0.25 | 0.46 | 0.99 | 7% | |
| Full cost of production and net margin | Full economic cost of production (£/kg) | 2.20 | 2.38 | 4.38 | 2.26 | 2.65 | 3.43 | 11% |
| Full economic net margin (£/kg) | 0.35 | -0.27 | -2.00 | 0.30 | -0.16 | -0.86 | £ 0.11 per kg liveweight | |
Understanding the data
Farmbench is an online benchmarking tool that allows you to compare your farm to similar businesses, facilitated by AHDB and our Farmbench managers.
The latest production year insights have been pulled from the tool and displayed below.
A ‘production year’ means a 12-month period which covers all financial and physical activity relating to the production of the annual crop (plant or animal) from an enterprise. For example, the 2022/23 production year is associated to 2023 lambing, and calving for autumn 2022 and spring 2023.
For 2022/23 insights, the tool gathered data from a total of 86 farms across England, similar to 81 in the 2021/22 season.
This 2022/23 total included 57 suckler herd, 41 finishing beef and 35 store beef enterprises, and 61 breeding flock and 34 finishing lamb enterprises.
All the data has been averaged into three benchmark groups and ranked by full economic net profit margin: top 25%, middle 50% and bottom 25%.