Prices blast

NFU president Meurig Raymond yesterday used the opening day of the Great Yorkshire Show to attack the part British supermarkets have played in the beef price slump.

He said beef producers in Yorkshire were no different from their colleagues across the country and were struggling to make ends meet due to the “rock bottom farm gate prices”.

He reckoned the price had fallen by more than 60p per kg in the last year, leaving some farmers facing a £200 loss on every animal.

At the same time, the retail price has shot up by more than 46p per kg giving processors, retailers and the meat trade a significant increase in margin.

The gap between the price in the shops and the farm price is now a whopping £1.20 kg more than in 2007.

He said: “Not only are we seeing large volumes of beef being imported, most notably from Ireland, but retailers are doing very little to help consumers differentiate between British and Irish in the shops.

“What’s more, where we are seeing beef promoted with lower prices, this is almost exclusively on mince — not prime cuts.”

Mr Raymond said if retailers were serious about working more closely with British beef producers, they would be doing everything possible to secure a long-term future for the industry, including promoting British beef wherever possible and using the Red Tractor quality mark to help consumers identify the British product on the shelves.

“We are seeing some examples of this, but they are very few and far between,” he said.

“Yorkshire’s Dovecote Park is leading the way, setting a guaranteed minimum price for a three-month period, but this approach is sorely lacking elsewhere.”

Yorkshire’s 3,000 beef producers produced beef to the value of £147m last year but they were now being hit hard with changes to carcase specification, he said.