Cattle supply to Irish meat plants forecast to be down 2% next year

The likely outlook in terms of supply is a reduction of 30,000 to 40,000 cattle in 2023, Bord Bia's Joe Burke told the conference in Co Limerick.

Bord Bia has forecast that cattle supply to Irish meat plants will be down by 2% next year.

Speaking at the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association annual general meeting this week in Co Limerick, Bord Bia meat and livestock senior manager Joe Burke said that there have been very strong supplies for the year to date, with total supplies of cattle to meat plants running at 1.67m, and likely to reach just over 1.8m for the year as a whole.

For the year to date, there has been around an 8% increase or just upwards of 120,000 head.

“Within that, over 51,000 extra cull cows have been slaughtered this year in comparison to last year and the majority of those extra cull cows have come from the dairy herd as opposed to the suckler herd,” Mr Burke told the conference on Monday, which was held at the Castletroy Park Hotel.

“That has been significant, a lot of that increase took place in the first three/four months of the year, and again over the last month we’ve seen very strong numbers of cull cows.

“This is, of course, an impact of the inflationary environment that farmers are operating in, as a result of higher feed, fertiliser, and other costs; farmers are being a bit more rigorous in their culling of less productive cows and also maybe letting them go a bit faster as well rather than keeping them on for a period of further finishing.” 

Mr Burke said this is evidenced also by the average carcass weights.

“On average across the board, we’ve seen a reduction of more than 2% in terms of the average carcass weight, and in fact within the cull cow category, there has been a reduction of 14kg of carcass weight, so that is quite significant.

“Again, it also reflects the predominance of extra culled dairy cows within the mix there and across the other categories as well, similarly you see within steers a reduction of 5kg, within heifers a reduction of 8kg of carcass weight.

“The dairy herd is now accounting for over 60% of cattle slaughterings, so this is having to some extent a diluting impact on the average carcass weight.

“That’s not to say that beef is of any inferior quality in terms of its eating quality; obviously many of the beef cross animals coming from the dairy herd are being sold into premium bonus schemes and indeed being differentiated in higher value markets, in the form of those Angus and Hereford cattle in particular.” 

Cattle reduction

Looking to the year ahead, the likely outlook in terms of supply is a reduction of 30,000 to 40,000 cattle, Mr Burke said. 

“Based on the numbers of prime cattle that we see coming through the system within the Department of Agriculture's Animal Identification and Movement [AIM] database, we do expect that there would be 30,000 to 40,000 less steers, heifers, and young bulls available for next year because live exports, in particular, have been in recovery for the last couple of years.” 

Mr Burke said there have been more animals being live exported this year “than for several years”.

“For the year to date, we’ve exported almost 270,000 live cattle of which 170,000 have been calves, so in total, live exports are up 14%, and calf exports are up 21%.

“Certainly, you’d be talking about more than 10 years since we last sent out these numbers of animals, even in spite of the numbers of animals going to Northern Ireland declining significantly this year in comparison to last year.” 

Inflation

According to Bord Bia, high levels of inflation in key export markets have impacted on consumer demand for beef, as shopper spending has come under increasing pressure. 

While manufacturing beef remains "somewhat more buoyant", the retail market is "particularly challenging", as customers are focusing "increasingly on pigmeat and poultry, which remain more competitive in price terms". 

This has also curtailed promotional activity which typically creates higher demand for Irish beef across markets, Bord Bia said in a recent update.

Mr Burke noted the impact of inflation “really driving up what consumers are having to spend on a monthly basis”.

“For beef, much doom and gloom is spoken about the consumption trends, but here in the home market we’ve seen a decline of about 3.5% - not astronomical, it hasn’t fallen off a cliff or anything," Mr Burke said. 

"In spite of the price increases that we have seen gradually being passed onto consumers, be it at supermarkets or in butcher shops, they haven’t significantly reduced the volumes of beef they have been purchasing heretofore.

“What we have seen is more of the cheaper proteins, so they’re buying more mince, more burgers, and less of the higher price cuts to some extent.” 

According to research by Bord Bia, the overall consideration of beef amongst grocery shoppers in Ireland has decreased by 10% from 2020 to 76% in 2021 and 2022.