Weekly cattle & sheep market wrap – 08 August 2024

Key points

Prices for week ending 3 August 2024

• GB deadweight prime cattle prices have seen more stability this week, with throughputs seeing further declines week-on-week.
• Domestic supplies continue to be a key watch point for the lamb category, with the latest week’s estimated kill down 7% week-on-week. The GB deadweight SQQ now sits at 655p/kg, up by 6p week-on-week.

Cattle

The GB deadweight all-prime average cattle price remained stable this week, increasing slightly to 482.1p/kg.

When looking into the categories, the overall steer price saw some mild increases, up 0.9p on the week to 484.8p/kg, while the overall heifer measure was back 0.5p to 481p/kg. For the young bull category, a similar trend was experienced, with the overall price back 0.9p to 474.8p/kg. Cows witnessed a more significant price change for the week, with a 3.5p drop in the overall average to 356.8p/kg.

Supplies continue to tighten, with a reduction of 890 prime cattle on the week in estimated slaughterings. This was driven across all the categories, but predominantly steers and heifers. Cow throughputs have fallen by 860 head on the week.

As we have progressed through July, price differentials to Irish product have stabilised over the previous 2 weeks of data points, at 66p/kg in the week beginning 29 July. Pricing differentials haven’t been this large since March and may continue to play a factor in import volumes looking forward. From a wholesale angle, market reports are suggesting a mixed picture, which may be contributing to the short-term stability in pricing.

Sheep

The GB deadweight SQQ saw further increases in the latest reporting period, up 6.3p on the week to 655p/kg. This places the deadweight SQQ 81p/kg above the same time last year, the highest the price has ever been at this point in the year.

Lamb numbers remain a key factor in the current market, with AHDB estimated slaughterings highlighting a further 7% fall in kills week-on-week. This places total year to date estimated kill back 10% against the same period in 2023. To place some perspective on these movements, the latest week’s estimated slaughterings figure was back by 70,000 lambs when compared to the 5-year average.

When looking to key export markets, the latest wholesale data has highlighted a small increase in prices over recent days, suggesting some stability is returning to key EU markets following the typical seasonal falls in price. This combined with some corrections to exchange rates and a more typical pricing differential to European product, may be beginning to build a more attractive profile for European exports.

You can subscribe to receive Beef and Lamb market news straight to your inbox. Simply fill in your contact details on our online form.