Steak prices exceed £30 as restaurants battle soaring beef prices

Britain’s steakhouses are poised to start charging at least £30 for a piece of steak as restaurants grapple with soaring beef prices.

Diners have been warned to expect significant price increases on menus in the coming months because of a slump in beef supply which will raise costs.

Several industry figures said they expected diners to be paying £30 minimum for the cheapest cuts like rump or skirt before Christmas.

Hugh Osmond, who co-founded Pizza Express, said steaks had been priced “sub-£20 before Covid and then all this inflation has come in”.

“I don’t think we’re far away before £30 is pretty much the minimum for a semi-decent steak,” he said.

Since January, some steakhouses have increased the price of a rump steak to £28 from £24.

Gaucho, the steakhouse, said its market data suggested more restaurants were “getting closer to the £30 mark for a 200g rump steak, which is the most inexpensive cut”.

The surge follows a slump in supply of the meat. UK beef production was down 5pc in the first eight months of the year, equal to around 2,900 tonnes less of beef, government data shows, as more cattle farmers exited the industry.

For the year as a whole, analysts expect UK beef production to fall by around 4pc this year to 896,000 tonnes.

One regional steakhouse, the Opera, appears to have increased the price of its fillet steaks to £35 from £32, while Prime Steak and Grill, another local chain, appears to have raised the cost of its sirloin steaks to £34.90 from £32.90.

Mark Sansom, from Gaucho, said its steakhouses – which sell beef from Argentina – were no longer more expensive than rivals after prices “crept up” across its rivals.

The threat of further price increases comes after official figures last week revealed beef and veal inflation surged to 24.9pc last month.

According to the Office for National Statistics, beef experienced the biggest annual price rise among all food items over August.

Will Beckett, the boss of Hawksmoor, said it was a “tough environment” to operate in, with a number of people having “dropped out of beef farming”.

It comes amid growing pressure on agricultural businesses, with farmers bracing for a hit from the inheritance tax raid in April. A record 6,365 agriculture, forestry, and fishing businesses have closed in the past year.

Some restaurant insiders said they were attempting to swallow the higher beef prices and avoid passing it on to customers.

However, one major chain said if beef prices did not start to come down early next year, they would have to start swapping in other items onto menus, taking off burgers and steaks.