Cost of Beef

chipsngravy

Member
Location
cheshire
In FW this week artical on losses in beef production, or very small profit.

Forget SFP, Why do UK farmers carry on producing food at a loss ??

How do we get more money for or product, cutting the profit the supermarkets make on it.

Are the people representing UK farmers not pulling their weight and are to in bed with supermarkets and politicians.


Go anywhere round here on friday/sat night - chester, warrington, cheshire oaks, manchester, Lpool and all the restaurant chains are FULL. Any good village/town foody pub full. The public have money to spend on large TV, holidays in the sun, running new cars every 3 yrs on the drip, fags, booze etc. But food should cost peanuts ???
 

Flossie

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Lancs
Food is too cheap, but unless people change their priorities, by putting food higher up the list, then the vast majority will go for cheap in order to afford the holiday and the new flat screen TV.
There was a report out yesterday:-

http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/household-food-and-drink-waste-uk-2012

saying the average UK household wastes 6 meals of food per week. There's too much food, it's too cheap and too available. So it's as much what people waste as it is what they buy:unsure:
 

Walterp

Member
Location
Pembrokeshire
Food in the UK isn't 'too cheap', it's roughly at world levels which (given that the EU subsidise production) makes a lot of sense to me. Doesn't it to everyone else?

Really? How can it be tenable to expect a subsidy AND higher prices? 'Fraid we've got to work with what we've got.

Food waste? Another straightforward answer: it's a natural consequence of weekly shopping (food goes out of date, no longer fancied, family plans alter), big remote shops and working housewives. Again, there's little that can, in reality, be done about those facts of modern-day day living.
 

Flossie

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Lancs
Food in the UK isn't 'too cheap', it's roughly at world levels which (given that the EU subsidise production) makes a lot of sense to me. Doesn't it to everyone else?

Really? How can it be tenable to expect a subsidy AND higher prices? 'Fraid we've got to work with what we've got.

Food waste? Another straightforward answer: it's a natural consequence of weekly shopping (food goes out of date, no longer fancied, family plans alter), big remote shops and working housewives. Again, there's little that can, in reality, be done about those facts of modern-day day living.

Ok, perhaps it's the fact that food is too available and there's no value placed on it-it's there whenever you want it, whatever you fancy. Don't know what can be done-as you say it's a consequence of modern living-people want everything now, whether it be supper or a new settee. I'm as guilty as the next person for having food in the cupboards that needs next to no prep, but at the same time, next to nothing gets wasted in our house-you don't get anything else until it's eaten up. Until some value is placed on food, we're fighting a losing battle-just have to keep supplying it:)
 

chipsngravy

Member
Location
cheshire
Food in the UK isn't 'too cheap', it's roughly at world levels which (given that the EU subsidise production) makes a lot of sense to me. Doesn't it to everyone else?

Really? How can it be tenable to expect a subsidy AND higher prices? 'Fraid we've got to work with what we've got.

Food waste? Another straightforward answer: it's a natural consequence of weekly shopping (food goes out of date, no longer fancied, family plans alter), big remote shops and working housewives. Again, there's little that can, in reality, be done about those facts of modern-day day living.

Stubs & Higher price......

I'm looking at it different tho walt, as a young farmer with not much SFP. I'm sure there is plenty out there like me, How will new blood come in, or sons/daughters want to carry on a family farm, if you cant make money and just rely on SFP to live ? Maybe lots of sons/daughters who's family have big SFP and are fine, but what if it stops one day ??

If you said to someone out side of farming work 365 days and lose money, live of subs they would think your crazy.

I thought farmers take pride in farming, not just in it for 1st of december ??


So who or what sets the price ??
 

nacnud

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
Get rid of the europ grading system. Should be paid on quality and meat in the right places, big hind quarters are a thing of the past, people want convenience foods that they can cook quickly as the modern housewife/husband doesn't have time for roasting joints. Long, wide cattle with good flesh are the answer, easier said than done perhaps but every little helps.
 

chipsngravy

Member
Location
cheshire
Fag packet very rough calculation

R4L £3.90 @ 360kg = £1404 to farmer

Supermarket kill & pack cost £250

Total saleable meat price £2650 (roughly cost/guess)


Supermarket has £996 to play with on one beast. Yes be haulage and storage, rates, staff etc to take out. But they aint loosing money like the beef farmer. Bet they are making £400/500 on a beast.

Is SFP subsidising the public or retailer ?
 

Big Al

Member
Location
Middlewich
The trouble is even if you found some magical way to increase the price of British beef, either be it at the cost of the supermarket or the consumer then you give the supermarket a very big incentive to start looking for alternate sources of beef like they are increasingly doing with lamb. What's the price of beef from south America?
 
SFP subsidises the retailer and consumer. However, we are on a world market and the reason why UK suckler men cannot make money is simply because their costs are too high. Think of the amount of suckler men that build cubicle houses, 7 month winters, make silage,spread slurry etc. etc. Go to North and South America and all beef cattle are kept outside, same in S.Afirca, Australia, NZ and elsewhere.
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
SFP subsidises the retailer and consumer. However, we are on a world market and the reason why UK suckler men cannot make money is simply because their costs are too high. Think of the amount of suckler men that build cubicle houses, 7 month winters, make silage,spread slurry etc. etc. Go to North and South America and all beef cattle are kept outside, same in S.Afirca, Australia, NZ and elsewhere.
Ahh, but on that other thread we're being told it's no cheaper to outwinter. ;)
Agree about the world market bit. Though exchange rate makes a big difference. When the pound is weak lamb price goes up, as does beef to a lesser extent.
You have to add value to your product, or produce as cheaply and efficiently as possible. If you can do both you're on to a winner!
 

nacnud

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
SFP subsidises the retailer and consumer. However, we are on a world market and the reason why UK suckler men cannot make money is simply because their costs are too high. Think of the amount of suckler men that build cubicle houses, 7 month winters, make silage,spread slurry etc. etc. Go to North and South America and all beef cattle are kept outside, same in S.Afirca, Australia, NZ and elsewhere.

I know it's easy to wax lyrical about other countries systems when you come home, but what I saw in New Zealand that the dominant beef breed, by far, was the Angus.

Why? Not because they look nice and they are the fashionable breed at the time, but because they suited the terrain and they had a ready market for them not too far away in Asia.

What are our main export markets? Europe? What do they want? Our native breed's beef? Or their own continental breeds which could cost more to produce here than they do in their country of origin.

A lot of upland units here are using breeds like Charolais and Simmental, at what cost? With summers invariably getting wetter, good silage is getting harder and more expensive to make.
 

franklin

New Member
I am not allowed to shop at Morrisons any more.

Full of stupid people being confused by all the choice of which rubbish they want to buy. Stupidly not understanding about food miles or seasonal veg. Stupidly not being able to do the maths to understand which 2 for the price of one is best value. Staff looking miserable because they hate their jobs and are too stupid to get a different one, and so stupid they spend 30 years doing something they hate, to earn money to spend in a stupid way on stupid crap. Stupid managers putting stupid baskets of stupid goods in the isles of products to herd the stupid customers around.

It made me so angry that I do my stupid shopping online, so I can spend more of my time looking at my stupid crops stupidly making me very little money and stupidly using loads of chemicals because some stupid salesman told me to, so really they can earn more commission to spend on their own stupid rubbish (that probably comes from a fancier shop like Waitrose).

So somehow what I need to do is persuade some of these stupid people to give me more of their money so I can spend it on things that I deem less stupid?

But I am stupid. So I will probably spend it on more land. If I gave my brother some of these people's stupid money, he would go and buy another beef cattle. Why? That's just stupid.

So perhaps we all just trudge on doing the jobs we tolerate to earn some money to spend on the things we want that others will consider stupid.
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
We have a relatively new Morrison's in town and the staff do seem to be from a different breed of people......and not in a good way!

The alternative is the old tesco (n)
 

chipsngravy

Member
Location
cheshire
SFP subsidises the retailer and consumer. However, we are on a world market and the reason why UK suckler men cannot make money is simply because their costs are too high. Think of the amount of suckler men that build cubicle houses, 7 month winters, make silage,spread slurry etc. etc. Go to North and South America and all beef cattle are kept outside, same in S.Afirca, Australia, NZ and elsewhere.

I'm making money on sucklers, my 10 month lim str/hfr ave £914 with the Angus ave £810 this march, but I want the beef price up so fat men have confidence in the job to pay good money for top end weanlings.
 

Hilly

Member
I'm making money on sucklers, my 10 month lim str/hfr ave £914 with the Angus ave £810 this march, but I want the beef price up so fat men have confidence in the job to pay good money for top end weanlings.
Im fed up of reading pish on this froum about how sucklers don't pay, if those of you who have them and they aint paying weigh them in so mine will pay better please.
 
I'm fed up of reading pish on this forum about people making money out of sucklers but failing to include a cost for their own labour, rental value of land, cost of financing the cows etc. Do your true costs to find out they are unprofitable and then sell them until a level when the market makes them profitable through supply and demand!
 

Hilly

Member
I'm fed up of reading pish on this forum about people making money out of sucklers but failing to include a cost for their own labour, rental value of land, cost of financing the cows etc. Do your true costs to find out they are unprofitable and then sell them until a level when the market makes them profitable through supply and demand!
Pall my costs my anything has sweet fa to do with you or anyone else, im not feking telling you them and that's that ! but I will tell you this if my cows didn't pay they would be gone and they are still here so there is a clue for you, I used to have a 1000 sheep that didn't pay very well and now I don't, are you catching on now ?? just because you cant make them pay dosent mean that others cant ? your inability to understand this is becoming exasperating, now go milk your cows and count your money.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,293
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top