Beef quotes have stabilised this week after a few days of uncertainty last week.
Factories had been trying to talk down the trade, with some pointing to further cuts to quotes coming this week.
This hasn’t materialised and quotes have remained where they left off last week.
Bullocks are working off a €6.60/kg base price, while heifers are being quoted at €6.70/kg in many locations.
There are some farmers able to squeeze the higher base price for mixes of loads of bullocks and heifers.
Bigger, regular suppliers are also working off a higher beef price, with some working off base prices 20c to 30c/kg higher than smaller suppliers.
This is bringing some traditional-bred cattle into €7.50/kg base price before grid adjustments are applied.
Factory agents remain anxious for cattle, with many looking ahead for the next two to three weeks to make sure adequate supplies are coming their way.
The outlook for the remainder of the year is positive, with no great flush of cattle coming in the next few weeks in the run-up to Christmas.
Bulls
Bulls are also solid this week, with under-24-month U grading bulls coming in at €6.70/kg to €6.90/kg, with R grading bulls being bought at €6.60/kg to €6.70/kg.
Under-16-month bulls are working off a base price of €6.60/kg to €6.70/kg. This is before the 12c/kg is applied for in-spec bulls.
It’s interesting to see some of the larger factory-aligned bull finishers out in numbers this week purchasing heavy bull weanlings.
With exporters out of the market, the trade for weanlings is back a little and some of the bigger finishers are using the lull to stock up on weanlings.
Cows
Cows are also in demand, with specialist cow finishers with U grading cows able to squeeze €6.40/kg to €6.50/kg out of the market for well-fleshed heavy U grading cows.
R grading cows are being bought at €6.20/kg to €6.40/kg. O grading cows are working off a quote of €6.10/kg to €6.20/kg this week, with P+3 cows coming in at €6.00/kg to €6.10/kg, depending on weight and flesh cover.
Agents are still very active in marts around the country looking for good-quality heavy cows and the mart is still the place to go if you have small numbers of cows for sale.
Last week’s kill came in at 33,355, a drop of about 3,500 head on the previous week, being put down to the bank holiday Monday.
The cow kill stayed strong, with 7,104 cows killed last week. The heifer kill was also only marginally back at 10,497 head.
Last week’s kill was running about 3,500 ahead of the same week in 2025, with the total kill for 2026 now running just over 2,000 animals ahead of the same period in 2025.
Irish Farmers’ Association livestock chair Declan Hanrahan has hit out at factories for their attempts to drop beef prices last week.
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, he said: “Markets were never stronger, with Brazilian beef out of the EU market since September. This is creating real opportunities for Irish beef.
“The UK beef price increased by a further 4p/kg in the last week and is currently running 93c/kg above our prices or over €370 on a 400kg carcase.
“Farmers should not be misled by factories and their agents talking down beef prices. They have taken advantage of the strong numbers in recent weeks, but this is coming to an end.”
Beef prices continue to improve across the water, with in-spec bullocks trading for as high as 652p/kg ( €8.20/kg).
The increases over the last few weeks have now left a huge gulf between the British and Irish price. The Irish price continues to track about 20c/kg above the EU beef price.
