Red meat production at highest level in nearly 20 years in some states

Last Friday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the Quarter 1 2023 slaughter and production data, indicating improvements across all species. Some states recorded the best quarterly outcomes in nearly two decades.

Cattle

Slaughter

Comparing both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, cattle slaughter numbers have improved strongly across most states. Encouragingly, the eastern states (Queensland, NSW and VIC) accounted for 91% or 184,900 of the 202,000 head increase in slaughter compared with Q1 2022.

The eastern states all registered their highest quarterly slaughter volumes in over two years, indicating that processors continue to find ways to cope with higher supplies of stock.

All other states experienced favourable year-on-year improvements – although when analysing state performance against five-year averages, the smaller states’ stalling performance in Q1 suggests processing capacity remains constrained due to labour issues. The Q1 slaughter for Tasmania, SA and WA was 58%, 45% and 69% below the five-year quarterly average respectively.

Production

In Q1, Australia produced 498,314 tonnes of beef, the highest level nationally in two years. Year-on-year, this was higher by 15% or 64,000 tonnes.

All states registered improvements, with WA recovering its fall of 11% in production against Q4 2022 levels to increase 17% or 4,000 tonnes year-on-year.

Again, the eastern states accounted for 91% or 58,900 tonnes of the year-on-year improvement.

South Australian numbers remained firm, although moving into the remainder of 2023, slaughter production is expected to lift in the state as facilities begin to become fully operational. 

Sheep

Slaughter

Q1 2023 sheep slaughter volumes were the highest since Q4 2019 and rose 54% or 830,000 head year-on-year, while production was higher by 57% or 21,400 tonnes.

All states except Queensland registered strong improvements in production and slaughter numbers, Victoria and WA being the highlights. Table 1 identifies state level changes quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year for mutton slaughter. Production saw a strong uptick as a result of the robust slaughter figures.

Table 1. Seasonally adjusted mutton slaughter changes at a state level for Q1 2023

When examining state level performance, a few key notables are:

• NSW mutton slaughter was the second highest since Q1 2009, only behind Q4 2019
• WA’s sheep slaughter was the highest volume since Q2 2009
• Victoria had its highest mutton slaughter rate since Q4 2019.

In Q1, mutton production reached 58,662 tonnes – the highest volume since Q4 2019.

Production

Due to the genetically superior flock and sheep carcase weights at historically elevated levels, NSW mutton production reached its highest level since Q4 2006, when 101 million sheep were in Australia and 13.1 million head of mutton were processed in that year.

WA mutton production reached its highest level since Q2 2008.

Lambs

Slaughter

Table 2 below indicates that processors are currently alternating between lambs and sheep in their facilities. This switching is having a direct impact on softer improvements in lambs processed compared to mutton.

WA is a good example of this, with a 2% or 10,800 head decline in lambs processed quarter-on-quarter, while sheep slaughter in the state rose 74% or 217,600 head quarter-on-quarter.

Overall, most states saw increases above increased 10% in lamb slaughter except NSW, with its volumes remaining firm year-on-year.

Table 2. Seasonally adjusted lamb slaughter changes at a state level for Q1 2023

Production

Q1 saw 137,582 tonnes of lamb produced.

All states except NSW and Queensland saw favourable lifts year-on-year, with Victoria accounting for 66% of the total lift in production. The traditionally smaller production states of WA and SA registered solid upticks in production volumes.