Beef Industry Works On Clearing The Backlog

Jul 02, 2020

The President of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association says cattle are moving to slaughter, but it will take months for the industry to work its way through the current backlog.

Bob Lowe says numbers are going down but it takes time considering the volume of animals, 130 thousand that were caught in the system when COVID-19 resulted in a temporary shutdown at processors.

"The good thing is that we aren't backing up more cattle. We're slowly you know, slowly whittling away at it but you've got a huge increase in carcass weights which is a problem all by itself. There's just a whole lot more meat on the market than there was pre-covid."

He notes as we move through the backlog packers seem to be bidding on the heaviest cattle first.

"That's a good thing, a really good thing. So, if you don't have anything you own 1500 pounds or better, they're kind of asking you to wait. Hold off a little bit."

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