View from the rostrum: Is this the new normal?

Stephen Dennis on outdated schemes.

24 May 2021 • 4 min read

Auctioneer John Rossiter looks ahead.

Currently there is a list of questions that I am asked with increasing regularity which include: What will happen to the sheep trade when we go back to ‘normal'? What is making these sheep so expensive? What will the sheep be worth in the autumn?

I will deal with these in reverse order and immediately shrug my shoulders at the latter question of the autumn predictions for store and breeding prices.

We cannot assume that due to the current slaughter price boom, we will see increased prices for breeding sheep for August onwards as to put it simply, these are two very different buyers who have different intentions.

We have seen hogget prices in line with our current levels once before in 2018, but the following autumn, breeding sheep prices were very much in line with what we would consider to be normal.

We have seen an increased number of females offered for sale in the finished pens in recent months but in most cases these sheep are worth more to slaughter than any farmers are willing to pay to put them into their breeding flocks at this time of year.

But, in turn, this will decrease the number of sheep available nationally in the autumn so the old supply and demand rule will push prices upwards once more. But after 15 years of standing on the rostrum, there is only one thing that is guaranteed in the sheep industry - unpredictability.

Now back to my first question.

What is this normal life that we keep talking about? Is it all about pubs opening, packed restaurants, holidays abroad and fully packed football stadiums? It is difficult to say, and for the meat industry it will depend on whether consumers choose to continue their current ways of eating better at home in place of the odd meals out in restaurants.

The last year has shown us a surge in sales in butcher shops and farms shops across the country due to the restaurants being shut. We all hope consumers carry on choosing to buy better and eat better, but I fear this will always be ruled by price as we saw in meat sales levels in the pre-pandemic era.

Hospitality

So my final, and undoubtedly my most commonly asked question is: ‘Why are these sheep so expensive?'

From early 2020 to the current time of writing, we have had a global pandemic which has shut down the hospitality industry and we have also had the minor issue of Brexit which has had an impact on UK exports to Europe.

Now these two points alone suggest a mitigated disaster for the UK sheepmeat industry, but in the typical unpredictable fashion that I mentioned earlier, we have seen record prices broken on a weekly basis all through early 2021.

At the time of writing, in Ashford, we have now seen finished hoggets sell in excess of £180/head, new season lambs sell at £4/kg and we have seen cull ewes break the £200 barrier on several occasions. These are prices we used to expect to see on show week once a year, but are now commonplace.

With a decline in the numbers in the national flock and this increased interest in cooking and eating better at home, competition for the lower numbers of stock on offer has been very high, almost unprecedented.

Numbers are not going to increase rapidly overnight and this new demand will not decrease overnight which suggests that it is possible the figures we are currently seeing may be nearer to the new normal than we realise.

Yes it is true that we may be at the very top of this wave and that the summer months will bring with it the standard drop off in demand for sheepmeat, but the days of the £70 finished lamb could now be behind us. It would have taken a very brave person to predict this in a crystal ball back in January of 2020, but let us not complain and let us all hope the new normal is here to stay.