Producers pivot to sell lamb direct
17 March 2022
Key points:
- The autumn flush of lambs continues to deliver large volumes of lambs to market.
- Producers are preferring to market and sell lambs via direct channels rather than through the saleyards.
- The gap between lambs sold at the saleyard and lambs processed has reached its widest point since late January.
With saleyard lamb prices across the board operating in softer territory than what they were 12 months ago, many producers have chosen to sell their lambs direct through over-the-hooks selling avenues.
Last week, the National Livestock Reporting Service (NLRS) yarded 157,419 lambs, while the slaughter report showed that 365,390 lambs were processed. The discrepancy between lambs yarded and lambs processed is significant.
Admittedly, not all lambs sold through the saleyards will enter processing facilities. However, this trend has been observed over the past four weeks from the week ending Friday 18 February and has gradually widened since then.
Data delivers two key takeaways
There are two key takeaways from this data.
Firstly, this data shows that the autumn flush of lambs has well and truly entered processing facilities.
As producers sell lambs, the slaughter figures year-on-year – as well as compared to 2020 – demonstrate a significant uptick in lamb volumes over the past four weeks.
This improvement is cognisant of a larger lamb cohort and the autumn flush coming online, after lambs had been retained over the last two months of 2021 and early 2022 due to COVID-19, transport and weather challenges.
The second phenomenon this data illustrates is a national discrepancy between lambs sold at the saleyard and lambs processed, which demonstrates producers are choosing to market their lambs via direct over-the-hooks avenues rather than sell through the saleyards.
This is understandably so, with saleyard lamb prices tracking lower than what they were 12 months ago and producers subscribing to favourable forward contracts that were offered late in 2021.
