Steer prices

[littleacre]

we sent in 2 steers in october 1 at 202kg and 1 at 218kg dawn divides them into beef boxes of an 1/8 and sold each box at £140.00 we kept 3x 1/8ths for us and she supplemented the lighter beast with a bit from our boxes. killing and hanging costs were £175 and the butchering costs were £460. so a total outlay of £635. total boxes sold 13@£140 per box total £1820. we could of sold the other 3 boxes very easy. . if i had sold them to a butcher at them prices id have sold 420kg of prime dexter beef for around the £3.50 a kg total £1470 less the killing fees and i wouldnt have had any beef for us.

[Bridgehouse]

I have just slaughtered and sold the beef from two steers and one heifer. I sell the beef in 8kg or 15kg mixed boxes. I find some people just dont have freezer space for the meat in a 15kg box.

This year I sold the 15kg box for £10/kg. I sold the 8kg boxes for £11/kg. I sold the smaller boxes higher partly to encourage the sale of larger boxes but also due to there being a higher value of meat in them per kg.

I use a butcher who charges per kg DW to butcher and vacuum pack. Included with the slaughter, hanging, cutting, packing and making of beefburgers and beef sausages it came to less than £200 per animal. The charging per kg DW is very helpful with the small size of the Dexter.

I would like to charge more per kilo in my mixed boxes, but when I researched some online sellers I found some for sale at £8-50 - £9 per kg. I know the boxes vary and I do include my fillet and rib etc.

Besides over 30kg to share between myself and the landowner I sold the remainder. Following slaughter and butchering costs I have cleared just over £900 per animal average for the three.

The last two years I have just slaughtered in November time but hopefully next year I will have four to slaughter which are more spread out through the year. Three at once was quite stressful!

What do people charge per kg for a mixed box? I collect from the butcher and deliver direct to the customer. Luckily I am only selling local. I must thank CLive for his data he shares. I found it invaluable last year the first time I slaughtered a Dexter. It gave me an idea on what to expect in quantity, what breakdown of cuts etc.

I feel as a breed, my Dexters, are cost effective to keep. I am lucky enough to winter them all outside. No bedding costs. (Except for one 1996 born cow whom I have allowed into a field with shed access). I provide them with grass during the summer and haylage/silage during the winter. No corn. I keep a bull for breeding and he currently visits a local breeder during the Christmas period when not in use. I will have 6 breeding females this coming year.

I have an 18 month old heifer that is sired by my bull. Someone has been in contact about buying a heifer for showing and this has been one picked out for that purpose. What a dilemma though, this same person bought an in calf heifer from me for £500 a month ago. The showing heifer is worth £900 to me for beef next spring/summer. What are peoples thoughts on that?

Sorry for long response!
Mark

[clacko]

What a dilemma though, this same person bought an in calf heifer from me for £500 a month ago. The showing heifer is worth £900 to me for beef next spring/summer. What are peoples thoughts on that?

same here, they are worth about double hanging upside down on a hook. don't get too sentimental. if the heifer is that good then cull out/sell a older cow if you don't want any more females.

[Broomcroft]

I have an 18 month old heifer that is sired by my bull. Someone has been in contact about buying a heifer for showing and this has been one picked out for that purpose. What a dilemma though, this same person bought an in calf heifer from me for £500 a month ago. The showing heifer is worth £900 to me for beef next spring/summer. What are peoples thoughts on that?

To me, the beef value to a butcher who pays all the bills, is bottom line. So a bulling heifer of any reasonable beefiness/size, regardless of everything else has to be around £675-750 at the moment, PLUS any additional costs of selling live instead of dead (TB Test, delays keeping the animal back and having to feed her). So I'd say £800 bottom line otherwise there's no point unless you can't stand the thought of beefing her. But we would deliver a reasonable distance for that because we'd be delivering to the butcher anyhow.

Interesting to hear of box schemes doing well. Ours went like a train for 2 years then died a death. People just didn't want whole boxes and I wasn't willing to sell in cuts. So butchers only fo us now and just do more animals to make it up. Box schemes are great if you can get it to work.

[Saffy]

This is a brilliant thread, I do hope it keeps going as it will keep us all in the know and hopefully help us all to get the right price for our beef in the future, I will use it to help price my next sale, please keep it up!

Stephanie

[Jac]

A very useful exercise. Now how many of you (who are selling boxed beef and/or individual cuts) are registered with environmental health as a food producer?

[bjreroberts]

The Midland Dexter Group Marketing Scheme referred to in the January 2012 Bulletin has proved very useful for me. It has allowed me to take 2 animals at a time, one for me and one for the scheme, thereby reducing the transport cost per animal and I am sure less stressful for the animals.

My private sales tend to be delivered in "£50 selection bags" with roast, steaks and mince /stew in the rough proportions they come off the animal. Although I have never tried to sell a larger box, I just feel this size is i) not such a large financial outlay and ii) most people will have space for this size of order. I do tend to sell the rib joints and fillet separately, normally in addition to a £50 selection.

My overall price would would be around £10.20 per kg, but I discount by 15% after one month, which due to me not putting enough effort in to selling can drag down the average to closer to £8.00/kg. I still stick with £50 sales but they just get more in it.

I submitted registration forms to both my local Environmental Health and Trading Standards and had acknowledgements back from them but nothing ever since (is this normal). I am only handling packed product though.

[Bridgehouse]

I also registered with Environment health. We got a letter of acknowledgement after a couple of months. Then 12 months later they did a telephone interview with my mother and sent out a letter with about five questions on it.

The meat is all packed and refrigerated at the butchers so I just collect it in polystyrene boxes and deliver it direct to the customer. The meat does not come to our promises (except some for our own use!) and therefore environmental health have not visited the premises.

They enquired in their letter re transport of the animals, the carcase and the meat.

I do not know if others use polystyrene boxes but I have ordered twice now from JBPackaging online. They do a produce box which you can just about get 15kg of meat into it. Probably 14kg would be better. They do do larger boxes but I find these a nice shape and easy to carry. Other boxes were wider and more awkward. They are two pound something to buy but with postage they come to nearly four pound. People do comment on the way the meat arrives, I think it is important.

Mark

[Bridgehouse]

I am only in my second year Clive, it will be interesting to see what happens. I have built my customers up but equally do see some have not taken up the offer this year.

I do find people commenting on cuts of meat that they would not normally have cooked. Whether that novelty will wear off I do not know! The beefburgers get commented on the most. I do find that the media coverage in the last two years has been paramount in promoting the meat to my customers.

Mark

[Broomcroft]

Mark, I'm not the only one who has started well with beef box schemes and then found it got harder instead of easier. But people do them.

[littleacre]

i think being realistic is the key , and that also gos for what we want when we sell a steer . i personally think cattle prices are getting a bit too high a bit too quick. we are in danger that the consumer will just say no. in this economic climate and with the forcast of doom and gloom i think people will be forced into buying cheaper meat or will eat less meat in general . if we can be realistic with our steer prices ie buying selling weaned steers we can stay competative in our prices. the meat sells itself from a dexter because of its superior flavour. but saying that people will forfit this in hard times if dexter beef is more exspensive. we sold our beasts in 1/8th boxes at £140 i personally did think that was a lot of money for what you actually got meat wise. the factors of why we charged that much was cost of buying the steer in the first place over wintering hay silage and then the costs of killing and butchering. it would be nice if people selling steers rememberd the effort time and money that gos into the animal befor its sent off rather than just thinking cattle are at an all time high and trying to charge the earth for them. i was offered a 7 month old steer the other day for the silly sum of £400. .this person who tried to sell it to me was of coures on some sort of ilegal substance i presume ha ha. but in all honesty i am a little worried that prime beef like dexter and box schemes etc will be the first to suffer in the doom and gloom that is predicted in the next coming year years .

[Jac]

i was offered a 7 month old steer the other day for the silly sum of £400. .this person who tried to sell it to me was of coures on some sort of ilegal substance i presume ha ha. .

I wouldn't be at all surprised if that wasn't what it cost to produce.

[littleacre]

jac are you trying to tell me that £400 for a 7month old steer is a fair price ???? look on this site and you will find cows with calf at foot for not much more. . in price.

[Jac]

jac are you trying to tell me that £400 for a 7month old steer is a fair price ???? look on this site and you will find cows with calf at foot for not much more. . in price.

I'm not saying that you can afford to pay that and make a profit on your finished product but for many small producers with pre-movement test for a single animal, AI or bull fees and the cost of keeping the mother there won't be much change for the breeder.

Yes, there are cows with calves at foot for not much more on this site but there shouldn't be.
Common sense seems to go 'out of the window' they put them in calf and double their losses, wait a few years and then give the whole herd away 'to a good home'.

[Rob R]

Interesting to hear of box schemes doing well. Ours went like a train for 2 years then died a death. People just didn't want whole boxes and I wasn't willing to sell in cuts. So butchers only fo us now and just do more animals to make it up. Box schemes are great if you can get it to work.

I've been doing it since I killed my first steer in 1998 and you definitely see a cycle - great enthusiasm in the beginning as it is new and exciting and then it drops off when people realise you are doing it to make a living. I have a theory that people prefer, if they are not buying from a butchers or supermarket, to be buying from their mates and that is what the box scheme feels like while you've got a handful of steers & aren't selling it from approved premises. If you are always there and always producing you have a different mindset to deal with, you're a business and therefore competing with butchers and supermarkets. Supermarkets have masses of convenience, and to a lesser extent, butchers do too. Boxes schemes aren't as convenient for a variety of reasons, and if they're at a similar price then there isn't much of a competitive advantage for the customer to come to you instead. We can all have the best tasting beef in the world, but if people don't have storage or the money up front, no amount of quality is going to enable them to buy from a box scheme. Supermarkets aren't in the position they're in from selling quality, or even price, it's all down to convenience.

It's easy to think how good it would be to do box schemes commercially when you're selling a few steers a year but then you have to work out what is the real profit on your animals (factoring in all costs), then work out how many animals you need to make a living and maintain & improve your facilities. Unless you have many, many friends and a big car boot, it is often difficult to maintain the business above a critical mass of sales. It's not just a case of 'if I double my cow numbers, I'll double my sales/profits'.