Farm View: Why Irish beef prices have been soaring throughout 2025
Bord Bia estimated the UK took Irish meat and livestock exports worth €1.8bn in 2024, including €1.3bn of beef.
Much of the rise in beef cattle prices can be traced back to the UK increasing its beef imports from Ireland by 15% during the last three months of 2024.
Strengthening British consumer demand led to the UK's fresh and frozen beef imports for the full year of 2024 increasing 8% compared to 2023, reaching 241,000 tonnes, according to the latest statistics from the UK's Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (ADHB).
And the lion's share of the imports was, as usual, accounted for by Ireland, with an uplift of 13% compared to 2023. This increase was likely supported by the growing beef cattle price differential between the two countries, according to the AHDB.
The uplift was even greater in the last quarter of last year, at 15%. This helped to boost factory prices for steers in Ireland from just over €5/kg at the start of October to about €5.64 in the first week of the New Year.
The UK's standing as the strongest market for Irish beef was consolidated by both rising price and export volume.
Bord Bia estimated the UK took Irish meat and livestock exports worth €1.8bn in 2024, including €1.3bn of beef. The food board said the UK market accounted for 47% of Irish beef exports in value terms, down from 48% in 2023.
Sales improved through large retail and foodservice customers. Retail sales improved in the second part of the year, despite continuing price increases. There was a recovery in demand for steaks and roasts, with a 1.4% increase, while mince sales increased by 0.8%.
Can our main market continue to support sales of beef, now that it is a higher-priced commodity?
It's early to say, but the success of January meat and dairy products in the UK, while demand fell for meat-free counterparts and dairy-free products, was encouraging.
But there was evidence in the UK of price increases affecting the volumes of lamb and beef sold during January.
January has extra significance in the UK meat market, because the UK is the home of the Veganuary movement, which encourages people worldwide to try vegan for January, and beyond. Millions of people have taken part in the one-month vegan pledge since 2014, and in 2024 alone, more than 2,100 new vegan products and menu options were launched for Veganuary globally.
However, the AHDB said meat-free products had their fourth consecutive year of decline in the UK in January, while meat, fish and poultry saw volume growth of 1.4%. Lamb and beef sales were affected by high prices, but volume gains for pork, poultry and fish outweighed this reduction.
The AHDB pledged to continue promoting the benefits of meat and dairy products being part of a healthy, balanced diet, and a natural source of vitamin B12.
It said there was spend and volume growth in January for meat imitation products (the only meat-free category to see volume and value), but this is not expected to continue, because there has been a volume decline since 2021 of meat imitation product sales.
Beef and lamb sales may have been affected by rapidly rising prices, but there was no such problem for the dairy industry, with sales of cow’s milk products increasing in volume by 6.1% in the UK in January, across almost all product categories. Meanwhile, plant-based dairy sales increased by just 1%.
