Prime beef prices quite often slip following the Christmas rush, however this year looks to have taken a steeper incline than producers expected. With Brexit and Covid-19 still rumbling around, it seems that it has been difficult for processors to plan their next few weeks of production, plus instances of self-isolating workers have significantly slowed down killing lines. So, even if there was strong retail demand, the processing capacity might not have been robust enough to cope, said trade insiders. According to AHDB, deadweight prices for steers and heifers hitting the R4L spec’ in Scotland were 380p and 382.3p per dwkg, respectively. This represented a fairly dramatic decrease of 9p for steers and 6.9p for heifers on the week.