Ireland: No festive cheer for lamb producers
There has been no reason for festive cheer among lamb producers with factory-ready supplies for the pre-Christmas trade.
Producers had been hoping for a recovery in the trade pre-Christmas to regain the slippage in their returns over the past month, but it has not turned out to be, and the prices for this week continue stable and unchanged.
Most factories are quoting 630 cents/kg, with only one of the processors quoting 640 cents/kg. The usual bonus of up to 10 cents/kg has to be added for quality as applicable.
However, those with more bargaining power supplying larger numbers are securing deals worth 15-25 cents/kg more, with reports of 655-660 cents/kg being paid at the top of the trade.
“It hasn’t been a good year-end for lamb producers. The costs have increased a lot in 2022, and we haven’t seen enough in the factory prices to recover the extra expenditure on finishing the lambs,” one source said.
“The processors have been complaining about poorly and under-finished lambs coming into the factories, but the producers have to ask themselves if they would have recovered the cost of the extra concentrates at the prices and throwing good money after bad doesn’t pay back the banks,” they added.
Martin Ryan / Irish Examiner
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