CONSUMERS CAN expect to pay more for their beef later this year as meat plants and butchers have been forced to pay higher prices to farmers for their stock.
Prices being paid to farmers in the last week have increased by as much as 15 cent per kilo for male animals and 10 cent per kilo for heifers. This is likely to feed through to retail level in the near future, especially in butchers’ shops.
It is unclear how the increases will be handled by the supermarket chains. A number of factors have forced up the producer price, the main one being a drop in the number of animals available for slaughter. Over the past three years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of young animals exported live from Ireland. Over 300,000 young animals were exported, mainly to the Continent last year and in 2009, while calf registrations were down by 150,000. Many of these would have been processed here last year had they remained in the country.
Another major factor has been increased demand for beef across Europe, where most of Ireland’s product is now sold. The export drive has been helped by the weakness of the euro, which has made Irish beef more attractively priced in the UK, Ireland’s largest export market.
The latest figures available from Bord Bia showed there was a drop of over 7 per cent in the number of cattle processed here last year. The figures showed the processing levels at Irish meat plants up to the middle of December last were 1,474,303 up to that date. This compares with 1,581,170 in the corresponding period in 2009.