Press Release - Facotires have held both farmers and mainland supermarkets in.........

Factories have held both farmers and mainland supermarkets in contempt.

Mainland prices will result in NI cattle meeting mainland specification.

Northern Ireland’s meat processors have only themselves to blame for the confusion that has engulfed the Province’s beef industry following the overnight introduction, just two weeks ago, of a radically modified price grid that suddenly put the black spot on the older and heavier cattle which had accounted for more than 30 per cent of prime cattle throughput.

So says the National Beef Association which explains the production of so many unusually heavy animals, often as a result of them being slaughtered when they were well over 30 months old, as the only route many finishers could take in a bid to generate much needed income from a notoriously underpaid market.

“The factories have themselves created this chaos because they thought they could get away forever with paying second-rate prices for high quality cattle,” explained the Association’s Northern Ireland chairman, Oisin Murnion.

“With prices stuck at around 250p, a full £120 a head less than is earned by selling similar quality 340 kilo carcases being offered on the mainland, is it any wonder that so many feeders tried to counter this institutional short sightedness by seeking to produce as many kilos as possible and in doing so swamped the Province’s beef distribution system with oversized carcases.”

The Association has noted the LMC’s estimates that about 30 per cent of prime cattle on offer in Northern Ireland were outside the OTM spec and over 20 per cent missed weight targets with a 400 kilo maximum.

“What were the factories playing at? The temptation to persistently under price cattle has lured them into treating both their farmer-suppliers, and their mainland supermarket customers, with contempt,” said Mr Murnion.

“Finishers on the mainland are content to produce in-spec cattle, the LMC says only two per cent of Britain’s steer and heifer slaughter mix is OTM, because they are being paid to hit the target but those in Northern Ireland have been forced to produce giants in an effort to stay in business because they were being paid peanuts instead.”

”The Association is sure that the impetus behind the sudden clampdown on weight and age has come from supermarkets which are angry at the high proportion of out-of-specification beef being sneaked into their orders – and decided enough was enough.”

“But they, the multiples, have to understand that the only way Northern Ireland’s beef specialists can model their production on the mainland template is if they are paid mainland money for their cattle.”

“Professional beef farmers in Northern Ireland can produce cattle to hit any specification - as long as they are paid enough money to do so.”

“If mainland prices were offered for cattle hitting the new 280-380kg weight target there would be a miraculous production turnaround.  But if, as many fear, the factories revert to type, and gradually make their specifications more elastic without offering sufficient incentive for so-called “Gold Box” stock then finishers will do all they can to counter the discount - even if it means continuing to feed stock that should have been processed much earlier.”

“The NBA would strongly advise all finishers to ring around the plants before sending their cattle to their normal suppliers, to find out what the prices are for different specifications and the penalties, which could apply”.   

For more information contact:

Oisin Murnion, NBA chairman in Northern Ireland.  Tel. 02841 765082/
                                                                    Mobile: 07739 632048