Lamb prices increase but remain under pressure

Deadweight lamb prices increased for four consecutive weeks during November and early December.

GB prices rose to average 561.1p/kg deadweight in the week ending 3 December, up by almost 50p/kg on month-earlier levels.

Despite this growth, prices are 57.5p/kg below the same week last year.

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Jonny Williams, operations director at livestock marketing group Farmstock, said there is a lot of New Zealand lamb coming in, both to the UK and into Europe, which is making it challenging and taking the edge off the trade.

“UK lamb is competitive, but not currently as price competitive in Europe as New Zealand lamb,” said Mr Williams.

“Lightweight lambs are very tricky as they are generally exported to southern Europe and that trade does seem very difficult. Standard weight lambs are selling OK, but maybe not as high as people had hoped,” he added.

Supply

Mr Williams said there is plenty of supply at the moment and that if producers have the ability to hang on to lambs over the new year and into the second week of January, normally there is some improvement in demand.

Charlotte Forkes-Rees, analyst at AHDB, said: “In the year to date, slaughter numbers are up 2.2% on the same period last year, with 10.6 million head processed.”

Average weekly auction market throughputs during November were up by 5% on the previous month.

Ms Forkes-Rees said this was due to a higher number of producers sending forward fattened lambs ready for Christmas demand.

Liveweight

Liveweight prices have been more supported in recent weeks, but as Christmas demand draws to a close, prices have started to fall back.

The GB liveweight SQQ fell to 238.3p/kg for the week ending 10 December, down by 7.9p/kg on the week and 39.3p/kg on year earlier levels.

Auctioneer Russell Steer said prime lambs met a steady trade at Exeter Livestock Centre on Monday (12 December), where trade was back by 7p/kg on week-earlier levels to average 238p/kg and £108.77 a head.