Price cuts in the NSW saleyards are finally flowing to the butcher shop

But the price fall for our favourite cuts of beef might not have fallen as much as customers may have hoped.

Bathurst butcher Martin Timms said any price falls in the cost of beef bodies are passed onto his customers and he estimates the market was back on average 140 to 160 cents a kilogram from the price peak last year.

"For some beef it might be back as much as 200c/kg when compared with last year's top of the market," Mr Timms said.

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"The beef market has certainly started to drop and that's been more evident since the start of this year.

"The falls we are seeing to cattle prices in the saleyards are starting to flow through at our end and there's been a noticeable change in the past month."

Mr Timms, who owns Farmgate Fresh Cut Meats, buys about six to eight beef bodies a week and fills the occasional gap with boxed beef.

"We prefer to buy the beef bodies and cut it up ourselves," he said.

With the slip in prices to a more sustainable level, Mr Timms said some of his customers were turning back to buying beef.

"It's back in the budget for some people," he said.

This sentiment matches Australian Bureau of Statistics figures for beef and veal pricing.

After significant quarterly lifts of as much as seven per cent for beef and veal in early 2022, the prices have fallen in the last quarter of 2022.

Helping ease the shortfall of meat supply this year has been the lift in the number of cattle going to slaughter.

Meat and Livestock Australia market analyst Jenny Lim said slaughter figures last week continued the ascending trend of recent weeks.

"Slaughter continues to strengthen for cattle, remaining above 100,000 head," she said.

For historical context, the national weekly slaughter figures rarely climbed above 100,000 head last year.

At the same time, last week's national figure of 112,781 head was significantly higher than any other week since the start of 2021.

Ms Lim said leading the charge was Queensland cattle slaughter, which lifted eight per cent on the back of increased supply of slaughter weight animals available in the market.

MLA has previously reported that processor capacity, affected by the availability of skilled and unskilled labour, would be the key determinant of adult cattle slaughter this year.

It has forecast that if processor capacity can increase through improved labour availability, slaughter is forecast to reach 6.625 million head this year.

This is a rise of 7.7pc, or 475,000 head, on current 2022 MLA estimates.

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