Sheepmeat market buoyant across Australia, while WA mutton slaughter booms

High global demand for sheepmeat has helped prices remain high later into the year, with heavy lamb in particular commanding premiums, reaching above the $9 mark in some centres. Meanwhile Western Australia is turning off unusually high volumes of mutton as the state's sheep industry continues to see widespread destocking. While the national heavy lamb indicator is at 880c, trade lamb has lagged behind somewhat at 818c. The light lamb indicator was, as of Monday, at 727c, while Merino lamb was 628c and restocker lamb 699c. The national mutton indicator was 365c. Meat & Livestock Australia senior market information analyst Erin Lukey said the gap between heavy lamb and trade lamb keeps widening, counter to what usually happens at this time of year "I think the strongest influence on this is going to be supply of that quality end of the heavy spectrum... a lot of it would be those producers that have been able to keep up weights and supply those weights, a lot of that has come ...