Simmental sales riding high in 2026 on back of hot beef market
Simmental sales were among the early sales out of the blocks in May 2026, and came out swinging – with strong sales, high or complete clearances and averages up between $2,000-$4,000 on the 2025 season, signalling a strong demand for the bulls.
The Knauf family of the Kerrah Stud at Wairoa sold Lot 1 of their Simmental bull line-up for a breed record $60,000 to the McFadzean Cattle Company, Wairarapa. The Farmers Weekly reported Kerrah N359 was by Kerrah Jaguar J491 out of a Kerrah cow and was described by breeder Jon Knauf an exceptional bull to start the catalogue, with 100 straws retained for herd use.
Clearance of 82 bulls offered was complete and the average was $13,957, compared with the 2025 average of $12,000. Kerrah held the previous price record for a Simmental bull in New Zealand, being $45,000 made in 2021.
Kerrah studmaster Jon Knauf said he was positive for the future of the breed, considering the gains available from hybrid vigour and said the breed is well set up to be a leading provider of terminal sire genetics.
“We are all united within the breed on the one front with IGS (International Genetics Solutions) and doing the docility recording – we all want to be relevant to the commercial farmer, which is a great position to be in.”
“The high prices and high clearance rates flowed on from the great results at weaner fairs this year and cattle returns in general – and while our bulls breed weaners that sell very well at fairs around the country many of our bull buyers also grow their progeny through and kill them themselves.”
“The strength of the breed is more kilos out the gate and more dollars out the gate.”
“We are also making good progress on the docility in the breed – this has been seen as a negative in the past, and some of that was fair criticism, but we have been working on it with the best science available and we are really making some good progress – the cattle are much quieter.”
Gold Creek Simmentals, Gisborne, had a top price of $30,000 for Gold Creek Nebraska sold to Simon McRae, Overland Simmentals, Waimate. Vendor Tom Sanson said the average for the full clearance of 39 bulls sold was $12,197 and that was their highest achievement so far, for both top price and average.
Glen Anthony Simmentals, Waipukurau, had the 38th sale for vendors Tony and Glenys Thompson, averaging $11,023 for a full clearance of 22 bulls, compared with $8291 last year.
Opawa Downs Simmentals, also of Fairlie, had consistent top prices at $21,000 for Opawa Nutcracker, along with sales at $20,500 and $20,000 twice. Nutcracker was bought by Doug Patterson, Okuku, and in total 25 bulls were sold from 29 offered and the average was $11,450.
The Beresford Simmental Stud in the Catlins, South Otago, sold 15 out of 15 bulls for an average of over $14,000, at an on-farm helmsman-style auction, where rather than offering the bulls sequentially, all were open over bidr for bidding simultaneously, and all remained available until the end of the sale.
“As well as a good crowd on the farm, we also had several buyers participating from afar and were delighted with the outcome of the sale. It was very successful, increasing our reach and buyer pool across the country, giving more farmers the option to buy without having to be here in person,” said Warren Burgess.
Potawa and Hill Valley Simmentals also had good clearances and averages of around $10,000.
From a bull buying perspective, Johnie McFadzean from the Wairarapa was very pleased with his purchase at Kerrah Simmentals, saying phenotypically the bull they purchased was “pretty perfect” and of a type that really suits their system, producing weaner bulls off hill country for the Wairarapa weaner fairs.
“We have had a really good run out of the Kerrah bulls and this year’s bull was a similar type but an outcross which was huge for us. He had an excellent dataset too.”
Johnie’s family have been producing weaner-fair topping Simmental Angus cross cattle on their Wairarapa hill country for 50 years and he said particularly over the last five years any weaner with Simmental in it has sold really well locally in the Wairarapa – and actually all around the country, he added.
“Anything with a bit of exotic goes really well for us – we have some great repeat buyers from the Manawatu who finish them.”
“Our base cow herd of Simmental Angus cross has served us really well, and we have probably topped the fair for the past 40 years give or take.”
“Up until eight years ago we sold Simmental Angus cross steers, but they were almost outgrowing the market, so we switched to bulls and we sell them up to 370kg weaned off mum. This year we sold 170 bulls at an average of 335kg and they were all varying degrees of Simmental Angus cross.”
“The Simmental Angus cross is very hard to beat maternally and in terms of growth rate – I finish a lot of cattle and there is no comparison to straight Angus. The crossbred cattle are just more kilograms out the gate.”
“So many people are traditional in a sense, but I think we are seeing a change now, a splash of Simmental through any herd doesn’t do any harm.”
‘It has been such a great season for the bull sellers – I traveled around many of the sales and really the old adage of the price of 1 bull equalling 10 weaners is really holding true – if you were selling weaners for $1800-1900 the prices of good bulls was around $18,000 to $20,000.”
“Maybe people were trying to get rid of a bit of a tax bill too, there might have been a bit of that,” he laughed.