Rabobank Beef Quarterly preview with Blake Holgate

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Rabobank's latest Beef Quarterly report takes a "whip around" what's happening in the world's major markets to find out how they're faring with Covid-19, says Blake Holgate.

Rabobank's Proteins Analyst gave Jamie Mackay a sneak preview of next week's report on The Country today.

"I think the general trend is we're seeing, from a processing perspective, things getting back to normality," Holgate said.

Global markets were still dealing with "various waves of outbreaks," but that was affecting processing at a regional level, rather that having the significant impact on production that was seen during May, Holgate said.

Rabobank's animal proteins analyst Blake Holgate. Photo / Supplied

Meanwhile foodservice was starting to open, but at "varying degrees of capacity" and "certainly not the level of pre-Covid" due to restrictions.

"So that still has had that lingering, depressing impact on demand through those foodservice channels," Holgate said.

Most of New Zealand's beef goes to the manufacturing market, which was an important factor underpinning export returns.

Listen below:

"That US market for manufactured beef is actually holding up really well and over the last couple of months we've seen strong demand out of the US, remembering even with service restrictions, most quick-service restaurants like Macdonald's can continue to operate."

Another factor was that mince and burger meat was cheaper than the high-end cuts, so they could be more easily afforded by those who had been financially affected by Covid-19, Holgate said.

Also in today's interview: Holgate took a look at New Zealand's prospects for the lamb market.