Dawn Meats group development manager, Paul Nolan, has shared his views on the current state of the beef trade and has also indicated some potential for optimism on beef price going forward.
Speaking to Agriland, Nolan said: “I think the tea leaves were telling us back in January and into early February that it was going to be a quiet spring”, as regards demand for beef.”
“We were optimistic that there would be a bit of a lift [in price] for Easter and that came and went. As you can appreciate, putting up beef for retailers for Easter, means you’re nearly finished the work 10 days earlier than Easter itself.
“I’m sorry to say, that it’s been slow and and challenging all the way through,” he continued.
The Dawn Meats group development manager explained why he believes the post-Easter beef trade has been more challenging.
He said: “The [beef] consumption levels in Europe are somewhat down but the choice of what they’re consuming has altered considerably, but I suppose everything goes through a fashion.”
He did express some note of optimism for beef demand in the near future, saying: “What we’d hope and expect is that come a little bit of a lift in the weather, the BBQ season may well just put a bit more life into it [the beef trade].
“That’s our hope, we don’t know but certainly at the moment, the best way to describe it, is we find ourselves a bit in the doldrums.
“We’re producing, we’re selling but we’re not getting what we want for it and we’re not able to push for it because the demand level is slow.”
He explained that the slowing in demand for beef has been seen for both the higher value cuts of beef and the lower-value cuts:
“It’s been across the board”, but expressed optimism by saying: “I think if you get a little bit of a lift in summer weather, the first thing you’ll see, is a bit of a lift in the manufacturing beef with people off to barbeque a burger and so on. From there, you’ll be expecting a bit of a pickup into later in the summer.”