Launch of new beef market tracking tool

A NEW tool has been launched to track the wholesale and retail prices indices in the beef market.

The Minister of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed TD, recently launched the Bord Bia Beef Market Tracking Tool. It was developed following requests for enhanced market transparency, which emerged from the beef talks held in August and September last.

At this time, Bord Bia agreed to develop a Beef Market Price Index based on cattle price index, beef market price index and an offal indicator.

The newly launched tool includes the composite vs benchmark price, an offal indicator and wholesale and retail prices indices.

Minister Creed said that ‘initiatives such as the Bord Bia Beef Market Tracking Tool are essential in giving stakeholders information on which to base their decisions’.

He added that his Department had listened to calls for increased transparency in the sector and was making every effort to contribute to this. The Minister also said that the tender process for other studies committed to under the agreement had started.

Tara McCarthy, CEO of Bord Bia, said, ‘Bord Bia is happy to publish the Beef Market Index as part of our commitments to the September 15 Beef Agreement. The information will be updated on an ongoing basis and is designed to track overall trends in beef cattle, wholesale, retail and fifth quarter prices. We will continue to work with the Beef Market Taskforce over the coming months to further develop the range of market information available to farmers.’

The Bord Bia Beef Marketing Tool is available at https://www. bordbia.ie/farmers-growers/farmers/prices-markets/beef-market-tracking