Western Canada's beef packing plants continue to operate at a good pace.
Brian Perillat is senior analyst with Canfax.
"Things keep plugging along pretty darn good at the packing plant levels," he said. "They've been working full out, really. They got back up to pre-COVID levels fairly quickly. They've maintained that the last couple of months. Working quite a few Saturday's and really focusing on the fed kill, so less cows being processed and doing as many fed cattle almost as they can. Working through the backlog, full slaughter rate."
Perillat notes pricing on the cattle markets continues to lag.
"There's a lot of cattle, big supplies. So our prices continue to be below a year ago. They've been relatively flatish...Feedlots continue seeing pretty big losses at this kind of price level. Got to work through the supplies over the next month or two but hopefully we can see a bit of an uptick towards the end of the year."
He says the fall cattle run is underway.
"Yearlings have been coming for a while. That's pretty much full swing right now, continues to be strong. Prices on the yearlings off grass in Manitoba certainly would have some support from Ontario buyers, which continue to be pretty active on the market. Manitoba's enjoying some good feeder prices and for the most part we're steady, or quite a few instances we're higher than a year ago for yearling prices. Calf prices just starting to get going, I think most areas have pretty good pasture condition so the calf run's been pretty slow so far."
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