Woolworths says it is a pre-Christmas gift for struggling families, the meat industry says it is the market adjusting to oversupply, and farmers battling record-low sheep prices say it is an admission consumers are being ripped off.
Australian Meat Industry Council chief executive Patrick Hutchinson expects the decision has been made due to a high inventory.
The oversupply is further explained by the low prices farmers have been receiving for their live weight animals, with reports of lamb selling for less that $1 per kilogram at the saleyards.
Mr Hutchinson said he expected other retailers to follow suit.
“In a competitive market, other organisations, including our members, the ever-reliable local independent butcher, will be following suit as best as they can,” he said.
In Western Australia’s Great Southern region, butcher Josh Liebeck said it had been difficult explaining to costumers why the price had been so high.
“They just have the questions of, they know the farmers are being paid not very much at the moment, so they always kind of wonder why retail prices are quite high,” he said.
The price the consumer is paying for their meat is much higher than the price farmers are receiving at their end.
The lamb market is extremely volatile and difficult for everyone to win at the same time.
Fingers had been pointed at meatworks for keeping the price of lamb high for the consumer, but Mr Hutchinson said processors were trying to make up for previous losses.
“Processors have been trying to recoup some margin that they’ve lost when farmers were getting world-record prices in the same business model, with the same buyers, with the same sellers, at the same salary, and using the same transporters that they were getting 18 months ago,” he said.
Mr Liebeck said the price he had been paying for his carcasses had only just started coming down recently, and that the high price was coming from somewhere down the supply chain.
“It’s such a complex issue. I don’t think it’s a matter of one individual person trying to do the wrong thing,” he said.
“I think multiple factors have come into play, and they’re causing this big disparity between price on-farm and price on the shelf.”
(ABC)
