Wet-blueing becoming uneconomic

Tanners started to wind down during mid-July for their holidays. As a result demand for hides dropped and prices for salted hides began to slide backwards. Those tanners not on holiday continued to complain about the difficulty in making wet-blue sales and that the gap in value between salted hides and wet-blue hides had narrowed even further, making it impossible to recover the chrome tanning costs. Even those in the business who are known to be super efficient and making a good product were complaining very loudly. On the raw side, beef producers are in a similar bind with every one of them complaining about losing money. The beef producers, often with a farming background, have a reputation for always complaining, never making a profit and driving the best cars in the country. However, it is clear that for some time they have had very difficult trading conditions. This in turn makes it easier to draw blood from a stone than get a beef producer to take a lower price for their hides. Indeed, there are rumours that at least one decided in early August to salt their own hides and hold on. Time will tell if they were right or not. Prices for hides at the end of July were as follows: * 36kg - +1.03 ($1.57) * 31/35.5 - 1.13 ($1.72) * 26/30.5 - 1.18 ($1.79) * 22/25.5 - 1.28 ($1.94) There was a good cow kill during July and prices firmed up for July but then fell back to June levels for August. Heavy cows went for £29 ($44) and light cows £26 ($40). There is speculation that the government will review the whole 'over thirty-month' scheme in the UK. Under the scheme, the total carcase is destroyed and only the hide is retained. The hide must be handled under strict controlled conditions and must be tanned in the UK. If testing was introduced, it may mean that next year traders would be able to export the salted cull hides again but, at the moment, discussions are only at an early stage and may come to nothing. The weakness of the US dollar has put pressure on the doubleface market in Türkiye. The Turkish tanners buy in sterling and sell their garments to Russia in dollars. Prices have fallen from £7.80 ($11.86) per skin delivered to £7.20 ($10.94) and are expected to fall further as lamb numbers increase. Supermarkets are planning lamb promotions in early August that will increase the number of skins available. Furthermore, the Polish zloty was devalued by 15% in July so Poland has lost its hunger for skins. Fellmongered skins went for £4.0 ($6.10) ex yard.