Few takers for last week’s low prices

THE pendulum in the beef trade swung to the farmers’ side this week, with the balance of supply and demand strong enough to maintain prices at the factories, or even reverse some of last week’s downward adjustments.

Any moves by factories to get prices for cattle down over the past week failed to deliver enough cheaper cattle to meet demand.

Very few cattle were actually bought at the lower prices quoted last week by some of the plants who reduced their prices by 3 cents/kg (1p/lb). The majority finished up paying more than their quoted prices to get cattle during the week.