The impact of the farmers' blockade on meat processing plants will hit shoppers within days, as major supermarkets warned yesterday they would run out of beef by the weekend.
Dunnes Stores, Tesco (Ireland) and Superquinn have increased their orders of pork, lamb and poultry as part of their contingency plans. However, 1,800 family butchers are preparing to capitalise as they do not depend on the processing plants affected by the dispute.
A Dunnes Stores spokeswoman expected the firm's beef supplies to run out by the end of the week. "After that we will be in as much trouble as everyone else," she said.
While they had increased their poultry supplies, the supermarket chain's lamb supplies were also hit as they were provided by combined beef and lamb plants which were being blockaded.
Tesco (Ireland) reported unusually strong demand for beef as shoppers were aware of the impending shortage.
"Buying patterns are peculiar, but with Thursday to Saturday being the busiest days of the week for retail, and particularly for meat, we would expect to be running scarce by then," a spokeswoman said.
"I would be very surprised if we get through the week," a representative of Superquinn commented.
"Some cuts are already running short and we are swapping stocks between stores."
But the Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland (ACBI), representing independent family butchers, said its members could continue to guarantee the supply of meat to their customers.
They were supplied by 400 domestic abattoirs, which were not licensed for export and so were not affected by the dispute, the ACBI chief executive, Mr Pat Brady, said.
"Butchers' shops source their meat in their local communities where animals are also slaughtered under the supervision of craft butchers," he said.
"This is a different product to that available through the industrialised regime in operation in the meat factories."
The ACBI fully supported the demand by farm organisations for better prices to the farmer, but stressed that increases in meat product prices at point of sale reflected general inflation and increases in overheads such as wages and compliance with food safety regulations.
"Allegations of profiteering by butchers are best answered by the fact that it is estimated that approximately 10 per cent of butchers' shops have closed in this country in the last seven years," Mr Brady said.
"Further, simplistic straightline comparisons between an average price per pound to farmers and the cost of premium cuts to the consumer are based on a poor understanding of the economics of the trade."