Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) has published its latest report into price transparency in the beef supply chain.
The project was initiated by the Cattle Council of Australia (CCA) to consider options for increasing price transparency after concerns were raised that a lack of price information along the beef value chain was affecting marketing and investment decisions in the industry.
The project also responds to recommendation seven from the Senate Inquiry into Industry Structures and Systems Governing Levies on Grassfed Cattle.
The report acknowledges that a reasonable amount of cattle and beef market information already exists in Australia but suggests a range of further initiatives. A copy of the report can be accessed at this link: http://www.mla.com.au/Research-and-development/Industry-issues.
MLA Managing Director Richard Norton said MLA had accepted a request by CCA for further work to be conducted to improve price transparency and was always working to further enhance MLA’s market information services.
“MLA currently provides a range of services including daily red meat market news updates, regional saleyard reports, live export information and price indicators,” Mr Norton said.
“As a service provider, MLA is committed to continuous improvement in its market reporting and insights services to provide industry with the most comprehensive, timely and professional information.
“Recent improvements include revamping our weekly over-the-hooks (OTH) cattle indicator reports to assist producers and industry to better analyse market trends.”
Source: Meat & Livestock Australia
Here’s a suggestion for Mr Norton’s team looking into “price transparency” and “improving their advisories” to us cattle people —> How about you include a list of “all” the meat-works you are using to produce the OTH indicators. AND then, allow these named meatworks to be “clicked-on” so we can check out the grid price for ourselves!!!!!!
This would be a huge improvement for producers AND for the meatworks. At the very least, this would significantly reduce the need for producers to “try” and find out/contact their local works (for what they’re paying) —-> improving both transparency and efficiency (for both parties).