Agribusiness News January 2025 – Sheep

2024 – What a year!

2024 has seen some extreme trading conditions for sheep meat.  With a huge drive coming in the late spring from the hogget market with a top SQQ for the year with the week ending 18/05 of £9.27/kg DW.  We have again seen the strong demand that key religious festivals drive, and the importance of the Muslim market.  Muslim people only represent 6.5% of the UK population, however 80% consume lamb weekly and 64% consuming mutton weekly (source: AHDB).  With the electric hogg trade, we saw many ewe hoggs who would have typically been retained for breeding, sold through the prime ring, which then had a strong impact on breeding sales later in the year.

The European flock has contracted in size, there has been disruption to global logistics with problems in the Red Sea, which have assisted the UK route to market. There have been challenges in vaccine shortages, midge related diseases, and land use change.

Look forward to 2025

Beef and Lamb NZ have recently published their Lamb Crop 2024 report, which shows a preliminary figure of 5.2% fewer lambs being tailed in 2024 compared to 2023, meaning a reduction of 1.1 million head of lambs to a total of 19.2 million.  This has been due to a flock 2.9% lower on the year, less 2.6% to 127.4% due to poor body condition at tupping and harsh weather in the South Island.  With the reduced lambs, their export figure is estimated to be reduced by 6.5% for the 2024 lamb crop.

The Australian flock is set to slightly decrease.  Meat and Livestock Australia have reported three main opportunities for 2025.  The first being UK and India Free Trade Opportunities.  As we go into year 3 of this FTA, their quota to import to the UK rises to 36,111 tonnes, by year 10 (2032), this will be 75,000 tonnes.  Other opportunities include the shortage of protein in the US, with the cattle herd being the smallest since 1961 following poor prices, climatic challenges and high input costs.  Which may lead an opportunity for a higher consumption of lamb, if beef becomes a less affordable protein, and as the population grows.  The final opportunity identified, is a change in breed dynamics, with Merino producers possibly moving to wool shedding breeds following poor trading of wool.

In the UK, 2025 is set to decrease the national flock slightly more.  However, the world population is growing, currently sitting at 8.2 billion, with a growth of 0.85% forecast for 2025.  With further recovery of the economy, shoppers spending may well look for sustainable environmental choices in their protein, somewhere that lamb ticks a lot of boxes.

AHDB have recently shown that almost a quarter of households (23%) plan to have two meats on the table this Christmas, with 10% planning on three.  This shows how the economy is recovering, and how key family gathering dates are vitally important.  Interestingly, 26% of people surveyed said they would be looking for ready-cook meals this Christmas, showing how giving various options to customers is vitally important now and going forward.

Key dates for 2025 will be include:

• Ramadan – 28th February – 30th March
• Eid al Fitr – 30 – 31st March
• Eid al Adha – 6 – 10th June

Kirsten Williams; 07798617293