Beef quotation takes a substantial step back

The beef market still remains quite weak, and this is now also reflected in the beef prices. The supply of especially dairy cows is fairly firm, while the demand for meat is not very strong. Meanwhile, there is clearly an attempt in the Netherlands and Ireland to push down prices. The outlook for the beef market remains very similar to previous weeks. The demand for beef is still weak, and the expectation is that the situation will not change for the time being. Now that it is January, consumers are taking a pause. At this time of year, consumers tend to leave luxury products aside. This directly disadvantages the beef market, particularly because it makes it more difficult to sell products such as steaks. Meanwhile, the quotation from Vee & Logistiek shows the first of the two declines that DCA Market Intelligence noted last week. All qualities have decreased by 15 cents. As a result, the U-quality has dropped from €7.05 to €6.90 per kilo. The O-quality decreased from €5.88 to €5.73. The first sausage quality fell from €4.30 per kilo to €4.15. It is likely that the Netherlands is pressing prices because the meat is simply too expensive to sell. The Netherlands clearly has the highest carcass price in the O-segment (which is indicative of lower quality dairy cattle). The price that the Netherlands reports to Eurostat is €642 per 100 kilos. This is as much as 2.5% above the level of the second most expensive major market in Northern Europe, Ireland. 2026 starts with high supply In addition to the low demand, a plentiful supply is also putting pressure on the market. This is particularly true for the high number of slaughterings, and that interpretation is confirmed by insiders in the market. However, a high slaughter figure in the first week after the holiday is not uncommon. Compared to 2024, there was even a decrease of 6.4% in that week. However, the slaughter figure is slightly higher than in 2025, and historically, the slaughter figure was always significantly lower than that. Thus, the slaughter figure is simply substantial. Last year may have been characterized by an extremely tight market, but at the beginning of the year, demand was particularly high. The question now is whether it will turn out in the coming weeks that the slaughter figure will remain higher than one would expect at this time of year, as has been heard in the market. Irish prices for higher qualities are falling Not only in the Netherlands is the price of beef under pressure. Prices are also falling in Ireland, though it is not about the O-quality cows, but about the R-quality bulls. In the country, it concerns bulls of R-quality. This is the result of the weak sales of beef in the United Kingdom. During 2025, the country began increasingly importing tariff-free beef from South America and Australia, leading to a substantial decrease in the demand for Irish beef. The decrease in price is remarkable and indicates that European demand is quite weak. On the European continent, the market for beef cattle is still tight. This makes it quite difficult to push down meat prices. However, there is still not enough import of Irish beef to push prices back up. Even a low slaughter supply does not change the situation. A total of 30,791 cattle were slaughtered in week 2, which is a decrease of no less than 17.3% compared to a year earlier and still clearly lower than the roughly 32,000 cattle that were slaughtered in the country at the end of last year.