The beef trade took a big jump this week, with factory agents under pressure to fill lairages with cattle.

Numbers of finished cattle continue to tighten on farms, with factories now turning to their own supplies to shore up the number deficit on farms.

Bullocks have lifted to a base price of €6.60/kg, with €6.70/kg being paid on a number of occasions this week to secure bigger loads of bullocks.

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Heifers have also kicked on, with base prices of €6.80/kg now being paid for heifers.

Agents have been given a lot of leeway to get cattle, with some raising base prices of bullocks to the heifer price to secure the cattle.

Flat prices have also come back into the fray, with a number of factories buying overage cattle on a flat-rate basis.

Flat prices of as high as €7.20/kg were paid this week for over-30-month continental cattle.

Traditional breeds are also in demand, with a 20c/kg bonus being paid on both in-spec Hereford and Aberdeen Angus cattle.

Aberdeen Angus cattle are also being bought on a flat-rate basis, with €7.10/kg on the table for the end of this week for heifers.

The general thinking at the moment is that there is more room in the trade for further increases, with a €7/kg base price being talked about in the next two weeks.

Bulls

Bulls are also solid this week, with under-24-month U grading bulls coming in at €6.60/kg to €6.80/kg, with R grading bulls being bought at €6.50/kg to €6.60/kg.

Under-16-month bulls are working off a base price of €6.40/kg to €6.50/kg, but numbers are very small.

There is also more life in the cow trade this week, with €6.50/kg available for well-fleshed R grading cows.

U grading cows have firmed up a little, with €6.60/kg now on the table for well-fleshed heavy U grading cows.

The mart continues to be the place of choice for many smaller suckler farmers to offload cows, with factory agents going above what is available in factories when buying cows in marts.

O grading cows are working off a quote of €6.20/kg to €6.30/kg this week, with P+3 cows coming in at €5.90/kg to €6/kg, depending on weight and flesh cover.

Factory-aligned feeders continue to be very active in marts, hoovering up forward store cattle, with prices seeing a lift in the last two weeks on the back of bigger demand.

Factories are said to be already lining up supplies for the Christmas trade in the next four to eight weeks.

Across the water in the UK, numbers remain tight, with all categories of stock seeing a lift in price in the last week.

Up to £6.25 (€7.59/kg) was paid last week for R4L bullocks, leaving a gap of over €200/head between the British and Irish prices.

EU beef production is expected to tighten further in 2027, with beef imports predicted to drop by up to 17% on the back of the Brazilian beef ban, according to a report by the USDA office in The Hague.

Imports are expected to grow by 4% in 2026, with Brazilian beef imports into the EU growing by 56% in the first six months of 2026.

Brazil continues to wrangle with the ban on its beef put in place by the EU from 3 September 2026.

The Brazilian Beef Exporters Association (ABIEC) has said that it is hopeful of a resumption to exports in the first half of 2027.

It’s understood that an audit for poultry, which took place earlier this month, was positive, but no audit has taken place to inspect beef systems.

Brazil had proposed a certification model that guaranteed compliance for the last nine months of an animal’s life but this was not deemed acceptable for the EU. It is now working on an alternative proposal.