TFI’s Paul Leonard,

THOMAS Food International new season lamb contracts valuing 16.1-32kg crossbred lambs at up to 880c/kg in August this year have had a strong response.

The TFI contracts for August/September delivery of crossbred and Merino new season and old lambs to the company’s Lobethal plant in South Australia are at significant premiums to the current Eastern States Daily Indicators for trade and heavy lambs.

The contracts include new season crossbred lamb prices of 800-880c/kg, 700-850c/kg for old crossbred lambs, 780-860c/kg for new season Merino and Dohne lambs and 750-830c/kg for old Merino and Dohne lambs.

The contracts were released on May 8 and TFI national smallstock manager Paul Leonard said today the August new season lamb contract would be closed at noon on Friday.

“We’ve had a pretty good response for August on suckers and older lambs, but I’ve left the older lamb contract for the pastoral lambs.

“With this bit of rain in the last 48 hours, this will give them more of a chance by early next week to get back on their feet and see what they‘ve got in front of them,” he said.

“It should give them the confidence to be able to finish a few of those older lambs if they’ve got mouth in them.”

Mr Leonard said the September new season lamb contract will remain open and the old lamb contracts will remain open for August and September.

Mr Leonard said lambs were booked from mainly south-east South Australia, New South Wales new season lambs have been booked in consistent with the early break on the NSW north-west coast.

The Lobethal plant will be closed for the last three weeks of July for its annual school holiday and maintenance shutdown.

Click here to see full details on the TFI August-September contracts.