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January lamb production down on the year
Thursday, 11 February 2021
By Charlie Reeve
January lamb kill totalled 850,000 head, down 18% on year earlier levels, according to Defra. Lamb kill also dropped back notably on the previous month with 357,000 head fewer lambs coming forward.
Looking at the trends for recent years, throughputs do tend to fall back during the first half of the year. With this in mind and considering disruption to slaughterings due to Covid-19 and a tighter supply of lamb generally in the UK, it is unsurprising to see a reduction in monthly lamb kill.
Widespread anecdotal reports of disruptions to lamb exports in January due to administrative and logistical challenges, may also have reduced orders for lamb for export. Although, these problems did not cause any lack of support for finished prices. We will have to wait until mid-March for January trade data.
Defra’s survey response rate was lower at 89% in England and Wales due to complications of Covid-19, this may impact on some of the classifications such as the split between clean sheep and ewes.
A lower production figure for 2021 has been forecast in the latest lamb market outlook which forecasts a 4% production for total sheep meat this year.
After a period of little movement in carcase weights for several months, average carcase weights have now started to increase with an average 20kg/head for January, up 0.5kg on the previous month.
Total sheep meat production totalled 19,200 tonnes during January, down nearly 5,000 tonnes on January 2020 and 7,500 tonnes lower than the previous month. This is the lowest monthly production figure reported since April 2018.
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