Tight lamb supplies keep a floor under factory prices

The overall view is that numbers of lambs coming to market for the year will remain tight, leaving very little scope for the processors to reduce their quotes.

The lamb trade is steady across most of the factories for this week at unchanged prices, with demand reported to be relatively good.

The general base quote is 800c/kg, with the quality assurance bonus adding up to 20c/kg for the qualifying lambs.

Processors are advising suppliers that the market returns are coming under some pressure and suppliers are reporting a minority of factories have tried their hand at reducing their offerings for this week, without success.

Suppliers report there is "steady" interest from the plants to get lambs, and deals with regular suppliers and those with larger numbers to offer are hitting 830c/kg in general and up to 840c/kg in exceptional cases.

The overall view is that numbers of lambs coming to market for the year will remain tight, leaving very little scope for the processors to reduce their quotes.

However, in line with the usual seasonal trend, entries for the live sales at the marts are now increasing, with mixed impact on prices so far.

Most sales this week did not experience any significant price pressure, while a substantially larger entry than recent weeks at Kilkenny on Monday did experience the prices tightening by €3–€8/head.

There were 740 head on offer and a leading price of €205 paid for a lot of three butcher’s lambs weighing 60kg.

A pen of 10 weighing 52kg sold for €201, while 10 weighing 57kg made €190 and six weighing 51kg sold for €187. The factory-type lots sold for up to €123 over.