ANZCO Foods Market Update - October 2025

It's very much a case of ‘steady as she goes’ for global beef and lamb markets currently.

Despite ongoing concern about a potential hard landing for lamb markets because of the high prices being passed on to customers, all our key lamb markets continue to be encouragingly robust in terms of demand and their ability to absorb our pricing into their supply chains. There is little prospect of further upside, but we appear well positioned to maintain current pricing for a while yet and manage any customer resistance better than previous instances when faced with similar scenarios.

In the US, The Lamb Company continues to perform strongly in retail and foodservice. In the UK, we have finalised first-quarter 2026 retail contracts at or above existing levels. Across Europe, customers are taking a cautious approach around chilled lamb but are keen to lock in frozen supply to replenish inventories after a busy summer. Meanwhile, demand in China is firming and we have seen incremental price increases on lower-value products, as further-processors ramp up production ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday in January 2026.

Beef markets remain robust, led by sustained US demand as domestic supply tightens further. Prices for our lean manufacturing beef going into the US continue to trend upwards while premium cuts into retail and foodservice are very strong. Other markets such as Canada, the UK and Europe are following suit, with the UK being particularly noteworthy as we see increased interest from processors for supply of manufacturing beef as their domestic beef supply and pricing becomes increasingly challenging for them. They appear to be well prepared to compete head-to-head with our US customers to gain a foothold with New Zealand supply.

Japan remains a challenge for grass-fed beef, but demand for our grain-finished Ocean Beef is strengthening and is adding value back to our business in New Zealand. Indeed, demand for Ocean Beef across all our strategic markets, including Europe, the UK, China and the US has been incredibly positive, highlighting the quality of this product which was recognised this month with a gold medal in the World Steak Challenge.

China remains an interesting beef market to watch – with ‘watch’ being the operative word for us as our sales volumes continue to retreat as we find better options elsewhere in the world. As I mentioned in last month's report, we’ve seen Brazilian imports increase sharply in recent months and that trend appears to be continuing with record volumes entering the market. The question is where does this product end up within the Chinese supply chain? The concern being that a lot of this product is ending up in freezers and will simply hold back any recovery in beef demand as we head into 2026 while this high level of inventory is slowly pushed out to end users.

Thus, it continues to feel like we will finish this year and start the New Year with a real focus on North America and our other western markets as opposed to looking east towards China and the wider Asian region.

Finally, I want to celebrate our ANZCO Foods’ brand ambassador, Hannah Berry, who delivered an outstanding fourth-place finish at the IRONMAN World Championships in Hawaii last weekend under gruelling conditions. We’ve been proud to support Hannah on her IRONMAN journey during the past three years as part of our wider commitment to ANZCO Foods IRONMAN New Zealand, which is held in Taupō in March each year. Our partnership with IRONMAN and Hannah is all about talking around the nutrition and good health that New Zealand's finest beef and lamb offers the world, and Hannah is a great example of an incredibly strong and dedicated athlete who has continuously improved her ranking in the sport and been extremely consistent in her performances as a direct result of the focus she puts into not just her training but to her nutrition and wellbeing. We are certainly looking forward to having Hannah competing in Taupō next March and hopefully crossing the line with another ANZCO Foods IRONMAN New Zealand title under her belt.