Steady but lower

AFTER another week of turbulence on the lamb markets, prices have steadied at lower levels, following a tightening in supply to the factories.

Factory quotes last week lost from 8 cents/kg (3p/lb) to 28 cents/kg (10p/lb), leaving this week's quoted base prices ranging from 353 back to 336 cents/kg (126p-120p/lb).

Lamb supplies to factories eased off as producers resisted the drop in price of recent weeks, and processing throughput fell below the corresponding weeks in 2002, which has helped to stabilise prices.