Restrictions soften prices and demand

With major southern abattoirs sidelined and export buying restricted, lamb and mutton continue downward trend.

Price drop: Old-season lambs are on a downward trend as restrictions hit market. Picture: Chloe Smith

THE tentacles of the coronavirus outbreak were again felt in the lamb market in the past week, with major southern abattoirs still sidelined and export demand dulled.

Prices for old-season lambs continued to soften, with the heaviest stock struggling the most amid restricted export buying and domestic buyers shying away from out-of-spec lambs.

And mutton showed signs of following the downward price spiral of lamb, with a noticeable drop in demand and price at some saleyards in the past five days.

The National Livestock Reporting Service quoted extra heavy lambs below 550c/kg at the Bendigo saleyards earlier this week, with processors paying to a top of $195.

Prices for heavy and tradeweight old-season lambs have now become compressed at $150 to $185 for most, with this dollar per head range covering lambs from 21kg to nearly 30kg.

The Eastern States indicator for heavy lambs, which is calculated on sales of prime lambs 24kg and heavier, eased to 688c/kg earlier this week.

That was almost 200c/kg below the rate of 12 months ago, according to Meat and Livestock Australia figures.

It comes as the Coles supermarket introduces stricter penalties for lambs that break their preferred weight range and kill out above 27kg. The Weekly Times understands heavier lambs will now attract a discount of $2/kg.

Nicely weighed domestic lambs from 20-26kg are attracting the best competition at auction, led by the good quality suckers that are starting to appear at saleyards.

At Corowa in southern NSW earlier this week the main run of trade suckers sized from 22kg-24kg made from $175 to $184 to be quoted at 760c/kg cwt.

Similarly at Wagga Wagga late last week, where suckers sold from $180 to $190.

Rates were not as buoyant at Bendigo for sucker lambs earlier this week, with a tight price pattern of $164 to $176 playing out for the bulk of pens.

That worked out from 620c-740c/kg, depending on weight, according to the NLRS.

Old-season trade-weight lambs of mixed quality were trending between 600c and 700c/kg on Monday with many markets reporting erratic results. A number of processors are still not active, with ALC the biggest player still sidelined by COVID-19 infections in their workforce at Colac.

Cedar Meats has also shut down again.

The impact of demand and price from the Victorian Government’s decision to restrict abattoir product to two-thirds of capacity in Victoria in a bid to stop high rates of coronavirus infections will not be known for another week.

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