Surfeit of lambs crowding the queue at meat processors

By LIAM DANN

An excellent growing season for North Island lambs is causing problems for meat processors.

Richmond Livestock manager Tim Harty said the high autumn lamb kill was putting pressure on processing capacity.

The North Island lamb kill was already 16 per cent behind this time last year, he said.

"Basically we've got a bottleneck," he said.

That situation is something of a reversal of last season when dry conditions created a shortage of lambs.

The ensuing competition among meat companies then drove prices up beyond the international market value.

This season prices were likely to be a truer reflection of international market conditions, Harty said.

Although lamb prices remained extremely strong in export markets, farmers would feel more of the impact of the high exchange rate this season, he said. And despite the processing bottleneck, farmers needed to resist the temptation to hold lambs back.

Richmond is concerned about demand for heavyweight lambs.

The company's sheep meats general manager, Steve Murphy, said that, considering the good growing conditions, farmers had understandably been targeting heavier weights.

But although there had been good demand for heavy lambs in the United States, Murphy said there were limited options for legs and shoulders in other markets.

Harty said that with processing already at full capacity it might seem that farmers were in a "Catch 22". But the message was to keep lambs coming as the bottleneck was expected to clear later this month or in May.

Beef-processing space is also under pressure. All Richmond plants are operating at full capacity.