New season lamb awaits kick-start
New season lamb awaits kick-start
NEW season lamb numbers are starting to build, but slower than normal with demand still restricted to local butchers until the major retailers switch to new season supplies.
Prices, too, are falling with some pundits expecting a drop in the region of 30p-40p/kg dw for spring lambs this week. Last weeks standard quality quotation for new season lambs showed the first sign of the fall.
Just under 5000 spring lambs passed through the live ring last week, with prices cut by 18p/kg on the week to 185p. The numbers forward are still small, but the trade fears that the spring lamb market might be temporarily oversupplied.
The combined new season and old season SQQ fell too, as the price slipped by 8p/kg to 102p for the 46,000 lambs sold through live auctions.
Major multiples
The major multiples are not expected to start buying spring lamb until May.
Asda said it was expecting to switch its supply in mid-May, so for the time being hoggets will hold sway and there is some evidence that several old season lambs are being held back in the hope that prices will lift again.
Jane Connor, Meat and Livestock Commission sheep economist, agrees: "I think there is still quite a few old season lambs out there, but they will have to come forward to market over the next few weeks, or they will start developing second teeth.
"Prices are still being influenced by the export trade, which has gone off the boil. The new season lambs being sold at the moment are being taken by the butchers trade."
Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, reports this week that very few British lambs have been sold on the French market, which is being supplied by new season Spanish lamb and its own spring lamb supplies. *