Beef prices stabilise at factories

Marts: Beef prices are stable at the factories for this week, with supplies starting to ease off, and the processors beginning to wind back with just more than a week to go before the break for Christmas.

Most of the factories were offering producers a base price of 241 cents/kg (86p/lb) and not showing a lot of interest in securing large numbers of cattle for this week’s kill.

The base prices are set on R4L grade with a plus or minus of 12 cents/kg (equal to 4.3p/lb) for conformation better or worse, and a variation up or down of 6 cents/kg (amounting to 2.1p/lb) for fat scores lower or higher than R4L. Most of the factories have also moved to quoting producers only in cents/kg.