It's not just auction prices that are on the floor...

[Rob R]

...I've just seen an online advert for a mixed Dexter beef box priced at what works out at just £5.50 per kg. Limited stocks, thankfully, or we'd all be out of business.

[Jac]

Now why doesn't that surprise me?

Farmers are flagging us down round here (think we are going to remove our trailer sticker) asking if we know where they can buy any cheap Dexters from. If they buy them cheap then they can sell the meat cheap. Perhaps we will see more of this even if this particular lady's stock is limited.

Thought for the day ......

If more and more breeders go into beef production is the price of Dexter beef going to fall?

[Broomcroft]

...I've just seen an online advert for a mixed Dexter beef box priced at what works out at just £5.50 per kg. Limited stocks, thankfully, or we'd all be out of business.

Why???????

I have a calculator in Excel that tells me what I have to sell for to attain the same price as I would get just taking the beast to a butcher, and at the moment that's about £10.75 a kilo average. And if all you're achieving is what you would get from a butcher, why bother, so I'd say min price is around £12 to make it even slightly worthwhile.

Just ran £5.50 through the calculator. Result was that one of my average pure Dexters would bring in £871 from the butcher, and selling direct at £5.50 would bring in £190 after all the extra costs I would have, in our setup. That's a loss of £681.

Whoever is selling it, please find a butcher, you can afford to take it a long way at that price difference. Or sell the beast to another finisher, far better.

[Jac]

...I've just seen an online advert for a mixed Dexter beef box priced at what works out at just £5.50 per kg. Limited stocks, thankfully, or we'd all be out of business.

Why???????

I have a calculator in Excel that tells me what I have to sell for to attain the same price as I would get just taking the beast to a butcher, and at the moment that's about £10.75 a kilo average. And if all you're achieving is what you would get from a butcher, why bother, so I'd say min price is around £12 to make it even slightly worthwhile.

Just ran £5.50 through the calculator. Result was that one of my average pure Dexters would bring in £871 from the butcher, and selling direct at £5.50 would bring in £190 after all the extra costs I would have, in our setup. That's a loss of £681.

Whoever is selling it, please find a butcher, you can afford to take it a long way at that price difference. Or sell the beast to another finisher, far better.

Economics do not always apply to Dexter keepers. However, in this case the lady in question has apparently worked in Finance for 11 years so would assume that she is not a fool.It does seem rather strange with all her livery customers she has to advertise this beef.

[Rob R]

...I've just seen an online advert for a mixed Dexter beef box priced at what works out at just £5.50 per kg. Limited stocks, thankfully, or we'd all be out of business.

Why???????

My initial calculation used £3.25 as a deadweight price, with a 67.8% DW to saleable meat ratio came to £4.79, plus £1 per kg for killing and butchering and we're already up to a 29p loss before packaging or anything else.

[Rob R]

Thought for the day ......

If more and more breeders go into beef production is the price of Dexter beef going to fall?

I doubt it. If you're breeding Dexters you're already in beef production, and if you're not breeding them for the beef it becomes a by-product. If you've got a few Dexters for a hobby quite often it is the pleasure of keeping the animals that is the primary 'product' and, again, beef is a by-product to be disposed of, sometimes cheaply. I've also known full-time farmers do this though - ones who normally sell everything off at the mart having the odd one killed for their own freezer and/or local trade, and they sell the meat so cheap that they'd have been better of at the mart. It's usually caused either by a complete lack of attention to the figures or a bit of cash in-hand. One local farmer used to, a few years ago now, have his lambs killed by a friend in a not-quite home-kill scenario, apparently in a bid to save money. The cash he was giving the friend to do the butchery turned out to be more than I was paying to have lambs killed and butchered at the local abattoir!

It's one of the main reasons why we've given up producing pigs - too many backyard breeders who find themselves with a glut (and no facilities to handle or store a glut) and sell cheap which makes for an unreliable market to compete in. It would be a lot easier if you had an outside source of income, but then you're effectively working off-farm to subsidise someone else's cheap food. Dexters are less prone to this, as you can't feed them out of a bag so easily and they don't have 14 twice a year, so I think we have a bit more resilience in that respect.

[Jac]

So what you are saying Rob, is that the rule of supply and demand as regards pricing policy does not apply to Dexter beef?

[Rob R]

Supply and demand does apply but it's more linked to the beef supply than the Dexter supply.

[Broomcroft]

My initial calculation used £3.25 as a deadweight price, with a 67.8% DW to saleable meat ratio came to £4.79, plus £1 per kg for killing and butchering and we're already up to a 29p loss before packaging or anything else.

Last time I took some I got £4.35 a kilo DW Rob, don't know current prices but thought they'd were still high? That equate to more like £7 boned-out. Then add kill, butcher, pack, collection, freezer, extra work, hassle, phone calls, time spent with customers. Still get my bottom line well over £10 and that's just to break-even with what you get from the butcher. £12 to make it pay minimum IMO.

[Louisa Gidney]

I haven't beefed a Dexter for some years now. As Rob says, the meat has always been incidental to my primary interest, the bones. The last one I sold, doing back of an envelope maths, was on the lines of I'd get £250 for the animal at the mart and need to cover slaughter cost of £X. Then work out sliding scale of £/kg to end up with said sum. Go round circuit of friends, watch feeding frenzy (Great White Sharks aren't that impressive!). Go home with empty boxes & wad of cash/cheques. It sold fast because it was cheap but I got the price I wanted. Fuel delivery costs similar to trek to mart.

[Jac]

Last time I took some I got £4.35 a kilo DW Rob, don't know current prices but thought they'd were still high? That equate to more like £7 boned-out. Then add kill, butcher, pack, collection, freezer, extra work, hassle, phone calls, time spent with customers. Still get my bottom line well over £10 and that's just to break-even with what you get from the butcher. £12 to make it pay minimum IMO.

I need around £10 to break even at my exacting standards (if I have to buy one in) and it is damn hard work (to cut and pack it) but people are regularly selling for £6 to £8 per kilo for mixed cuts round here. However, beef is a by-product of my pedigree breeding programme and not the other way round. I certainly would not want to produce beef on a larger scale and have to sell it for that price. If I had to work for a living (now retired) I am not even sure that I would want to keep more than a cow, calf and follower as (in my opinion) there is very little money to be gained in keeping more for the work involved.

[victorfirst]

How sure are you that it is DEXTER?

[beechhay]

Can I please ask for more information on the finances and figures as it doesn't all make crystal clear sense to me?

We have tried killing Dexters for beef and it is hard. Hard to find an abattoir, hard to get a price for killing and butchering and hard to sell on a regular basis rather than a one off. There is only so much that one can eat oneself and as miles make a difference it is tempting to take more than one animal at a time.

Can we please assume that we produce an animal at £300kgs live weight and then go through the figures, eg

KO%
DWT
Price per kg sold and to whom, eg butcher, abattoir, private.
Abattoir Costs
Butcher cost
Mention of selling to butchers, how are you getting them to the butcher, is this a private one off sale?

Every ones costs are different depending on whether they own or rent grazing, transport distances feed or fodder.

However I do think that if each person who contributes to this could actually put their figures forward in the same format we could compare and see what systems are working.

Every breed I am or have been involved with is constantly adapting their market or animal and it is of interest to see how everyone manages the Dexter.

Rob

[Jac]

How sure are you that it is DEXTER?

In many instances I know for a fact that it is Dexter (birth notified/registered) because I know personally the people who are selling it.

If you look further on in the discussion you will notice the different ways that the beef is presented for sale and the costs involved.

[Broomcroft]

We sell to butchers 95% of the time. Some butchers have their own abattoir, so you simply deliver to them, unload and get paid. Others, more usually, nominate their preferred abattoir, you deliver and unload, the butcher arranges delivery of the carcass to him from the abattoir. Last butcher price we got was about £4.30 per kilo deadweight. Deadweight is usually about 53-54% of liveweight (mine are anyhow and I think others are the same).

The boned-out figure to deadweight varies a lot more IME. But I did a file of over 100 Dexters once, and that averaged 61% boned-out to DW.

The figures I've mentioned above aren't costings, they are simply using the butcher value as a base, and then stating what price you need to get if you sell direct to end up with the same amount of money. I have deducted abattoir/butcher/pack costs, also collection of the beef, freezing and storing it, and in my case a little for delivery because I always ended up delivering some of it. Also, something for all the hassle, telephone calls, and extra work compared to just a simple delivery to a butcher. Result, for my purposes, is that I have to sell for at least £10.75'ish to get the same amount of money I would from a butcher.

Don't know whether this would be of use, I think it's self-explanatory but based on my costs just at and after the killing stage (nothing to do with breeding or rearing):