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US beef prices have soared but farmers aren't making more money
- bz_bz_bz 2mo agoSave you a click: "The rancher is selling calves for record sums, but is not better off because he has higher costs. The feedlot company is selling for all-time high prices, but it also has to pay them in the first place. The packers are losing money because there is a limit to what they can charge. Restaurants and supermarkets also can only increase prices by so much."
- ericmay 2mo agoMany people see this as a problem, but I see it as a normal function of market economies. Disruptions, changes in government policy, changes in consumer behavior, and more will over the long term just work themselves out. Of course some policies or seemingly "voluntary" policies may cause undue price increases, but even those work themselves out. At the end of the day as more and more people want to consume the same products the prices for those are going to just go up. When I see folks really hammering on price increases for products like beef or gas I can't help but think of how absolutely screwed we are in terms of addressing climate change if it involves consumer behavior.
- notfromhere 2mo agoA lot of these markets aren't really functioning when there are many middlemen that have an 2-4 company oligopoly that choke out any actual competition. Many markets don't really have 'competition'
- ericmay 2mo agoNo, markets still function anyway over the long term (monopolies go bankrupt and are disrupted all the time) and if you are worried about oligopoly you want to ensure that communism and state ownership of the means of production is stamped out to prevent monopolies.
- valicord 2mo agoAh, yes, clearly communism is the reason for high inflation in the US...
- ericmay 2mo agoThat wasn't what I wrote or communicated.
- valicord 2mo agoThe comment you were replying to said that the reason for high prices is oligopoly and you've replied that the way to prevent oligopoly is to be against communism, so logically it follows that fighting communism would help lower the prices, no?
- ericmay 2mo agoWell, I guess if the OP was under the mistaken belief that the only reason for high prices was because of an oligopoly, then sure. But that premise is incorrect and it would be a bit bizarre to suggest that given at a minimum we could look to American tariffs or something never mind the pandemic helicopter money that was dispersed. But if you want to follow that train of thought with that faulty premise, then sure yes we must stop communism to lower prices because the OP says that oligopoly is solely responsible for price increases, so it follows that further restriction on market participants further increases prices. I don't agree with that premise, but if that's your view and the OPs view then it would be logically consistent for you to also advocate stamping out communism to lower prices.
- Dylan16807 2mo agoSo it was just a non-sequitur? Nobody was suggesting communism. (Also communism doesn't follow the same rules as monopolies.)
- ericmay 2mo ago
- laughing_man 2mo agoAs the topic article points out, the 2-4 companies in the beef industry are losing money at current prices. If they didn't actually compete with each other you definitely wouldn't see that.
- esafak 2mo agoThings might not work itself out in desirable ways. I imagine what will happen is that portions will shrink, and become adulterated. For example, a restaurant ostensibly using ground beef might partially substitute something cheaper... Food fraud is rampant in developing countries. One example: https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/07/28/food-fraud-in-turkey-reveals-critical-risks/ https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/07/28/food-fraud-... https://scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa.14302 https://scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa...
- ericmay 2mo agoWell if you care about portion size or the introduction of substitutes then you can change your buying habits. We only eat out for dinner at great restaurants because I can cook better food at home in a lot of cases. You're going to have to change those habits anyway because even without inflation that has been ongoing since the pandemic began you still have a lot of pressure to push prices higher on beef and other "luxury" goods as global demand continues to increase, the environment becomes worse off and requires further regulation, &c. It's perhaps a head start, but the long term trend isn't toward lower prices regardless of the impact of inflation (for example).
- JohnFen 2mo ago> We only eat out for dinner at great restaurants because I can cook better food at home in a lot of cases. I also rarely eat in a restaurant, but when I do I make it a great one (to me -- I'm not talking only or even mostly about highfalutin places). Aside from being a better inherent experience, it also makes it more of a special event, which increases the pleasure I get from it. Any fantastic thing experienced frequently ceases to feel fantastic. The truth is that most people can cook better (and healthier) food than most restaurants. The value proposition restaurants provide is mostly experience (a lovely night out in a pleasant environment where you're being waited on is fun) and convenience (just because you could cook it better doesn't mean you want to, particularly for lengthy and involved dishes).
- JohnFen 2mo ago
- JohnFen 2mo ago> Many people see this as a problem, but I see it as a normal function of market economies. Both things can be true.
- cousinbryce 2mo agoBeef and gas prices are up due to policy (tariffs, war) If anything, it shows how effective government policy can be. Ironically higher beef and gas prices are quite good for reducing carbon emissions.
- ericmay 2mo agoWell they are up at least in part due to policy such as tariffs and war which unfortunately is imposed upon us in the US (Russia invading Ukraine, Iran destabilizing the Middle East), but I also think an important factor is the increase in global demand for beef and other meat products. Gas prices are a little less clear as it seems primarily the increases have been due to Iranian destabilization in the Middle East and less so tariffs, but gas prices do effect each country differently so increases here in the US are a lot less painful than, say, Singapore. I agree with you that increases in the prices of both are good for reducing carbon emissions. I think it's interesting to see how folks are reacting to, what in my mind seem to be still incredibly low prices relative to the negative externalities. If we factored in the destruction and harm we're doing to the planet gas in the US should probably be more in the neighborhood of $20/gallon or something (that's a made up number and I'm just guessing) and beef probably should be quite a bit more expensive too. Though I think it's also worth pointing out gas prices are still lower than when Russia unjustly invaded Ukraine and if we can stomach those we can stomach these too.
- recursivedoubts 2mo agoyeah, it's called inflation, it really sucks for everyone except the people who receive the new money early (mainly the banking system, but also people w/liquid assets + finance adjacent industries like housing) we should avoid it oh well i guess a bunch of people will go bankrupt and then get bought up at distressed prices by people with access to new money early wait a second...
- notfromhere 2mo agoIts meat processors having a monopoly.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- ReptileMan 2mo agomonopsony
- hn_throwaway_99 2mo agoI realize saying RTFA is against the rules, but this exact point (meat processors profiting off the price hikes) is specifically discussed, and refuted, in the article: > Four companies - Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef - control around 85% of American beef processing. > That high level of market concentration has drawn accusations of price-fixing, even from President Trump. > So you might expect that those four firms are currently making huge profits from high beef prices. Yet the opposite is happening. > Tyson, the biggest of the four, reported in May that it had lost more than $500m on beef in the first half of its financial year.
- quacked 2mo agoMy father-in-law grew up on a small-time farm and then went into environmental engineering as a professor, and briefly worked on the Secretary of Agriculture's staff in the Biden administration. He has told me that there are 3-5 (can't remember the number) colossal meatpacking corporations in the US that have laid waste to smaller-time competition, and now that the market is captured their owners and shareholders can skim basically whatever they want out of the enterprise. He also was advocating to have policy written that would stop chronic underpayment of slaughterhouse and meatpacking workers at these colossal firms and was told it was politically inviable. Unrelated to this, but I have Alpha-Gal Syndrome, the anaphylactic allergy to red meat, which is spreading rapidly as the ticks colonize every square inch of nature in the US. In Arkansas 20% of people tested on a big free testing day were sensitized to the galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose molecule (AGS is sensitization + symptoms, not just sensitization.) I think that things are going to get weird with beef in the US in the next few decades.
- richwater 2mo agoThe article specifically talks about how some of those huge meatpacking companies are losing money on cattle. I don't think it's them to blame in totality here.
- pingou 2mo agoFrom the article: "Four companies - Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef - control around 85% of American beef processing. That high level of market concentration has drawn accusations of price-fixing, even from President Trump. So you might expect that those four firms are currently making huge profits from high beef prices. Yet the opposite is happening. Tyson, the biggest of the four, reported in May that it had lost more than $500m on beef in the first half of its financial year."
- manyatoms 2mo ago> In Arkansas 20% of people tested on a big free testing day were sensitized to the galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose molecule What effect does this have on the person?
- 2mo ago
- JohnFen 2mo agoBeef prices have become simply insane. The value I get from beef can no longer justify the expense, so I've simply stopped buying it at all. I've largely replaced it with pork. Pork used to be the most popular meat in the US. I wonder if it will be again.
- recursivedoubts 2mo agoThe neat part is that there is no inflation here: you just substituted a worse product for a better one and our friends in the govt call it good.
- JohnFen 2mo agoI very much disagree that it's a worse product.
- recursivedoubts 2mo agowhy weren't you always eating pork then? (I like both, prefer beef usually but buy pork often, dislike how hogs are treated tho compared to cows)
- stronglikedan 2mo ago> why weren't you always eating pork then? That's not what they said.
- svachalek 2mo agoWhy were you buying beef before, then? Hasn't pork always been cheaper than beef?
- stronglikedan 2mo agobecause variety is the spice of life
- JohnFen 2mo ago
- ReptileMan 2mo agoThere should be laws ensuring that every market there should be at least 5-6 players and is free or is declared natural monopoly/monopsony and regulated. The in between you have all the bad from monopolies in the forms of cartels.
- pamircake 2mo ago[dead]
- TulliusCicero 2mo ago> A new pick-up truck that once cost $40,000 now runs to $100,000. A wooden fence post has gone from about $6 to as much as $19. A quarter-mile roll of barbed wire has doubled, from $60 to $130. Everything he uses day to day, he says, has jumped in price since the Covid pandemic. I know why pick-ups have gone up in cost (though I don't think it's quite to 2.5x levels like suggested here since the pandemic), but wooden posts and barbed wire, it's less clear why those are so much more expensive now.
- jermaustin1 2mo ago> it's less clear why those are so much more expensive now. It's basically, because everything else has gotten more expensive. Labor + fuel + wear and tear on equipment + raw materials. Inflation of a single thing, will have effects on anything down stream of that thing. And then there is the "greed" aspect, though overstated, where a company will see that costs have gone up in other sectors, so they raise their accordingly. This has been claimed, but I'm not sure how much it actually happens.
- hn_throwaway_99 2mo agoThe "greed" aspect is always bullshit unless there is a specific instance of market failure like monopoly power or collusion. This has definitely happened, so I'm not discounting it, but in those cases folks should just say the issue is monopoly concentration or collusion. Saying "greed" comes from people who fundamentally believe economics doesn't exist, or don't understand it. Everyone in the economy is "greedy". Consumers want to pay the lowest possible prices, and producers want to generate the most profit. Nobody starts a business to be a charity, and businesses will always set their prices to maximize profits. If prices have gone up, the question to ask is why. Is there not enough competition? Have input prices risen? Why are consumers willing to pay more? Saying greed is just a bullshit boogeymanization that politicians like to spout.
- falsemyrmidon 2mo agoBecause markets are neither rational nor perfectly elastic.
- dastbe 2mo agoyou can increase profits through volume or margin. right now we are in a whole economy experiment to see how long you can increase margin through price increases and shrinkflation.
- markstos 2mo agoAnimal agriculture is a key driver of climate change: https://sentientmedia.org/how-does-livestock-affect-climate-change/ https://sentientmedia.org/how-does-livestock-affect-climate-... Along with the high price, that's one more reason to not buy it.
- Noaidi 2mo ago[flagged]
- onlyrealcuzzo 2mo agoBeef is particularly egregious. Poultry and even pork are about an order of magnitude more efficient. It's interesting how long the market was wildly subsidized to hide the true cost of beef.
- allcentury 2mo ago
- Noaidi 2mo agoWelcome to the Polycrisis. Climate change, economic collapse, etc... Just wait till El Nino hits this year.
- walthamstow 2mo agoThe amount of beef eaten per person per year in the USA is absolutely insane anyway: USA - 37kg/capita UK - 18kg/capita We're not exactly shy of roast beef on this island either - the French nicknamed us "rosbifs" for a reason.
- ihsw 2mo ago[dead]
- Schlagbohrer 2mo agoAccording to the Economist magazine, the global problem is Chinese people eating more meat.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- walthamstow 2mo agoThat's a deeply biased stance though, isn't it? It seems to say that USA and Brazil eating vast amounts of beef, the latter clearing the Amazon to do so, isn't a problem, it's only a problem now because of the Chinese.
- Dylan16807 2mo agoThe word "problem" lacks nuance here. But it's a reasonable stand-in for "the factor that shifted and is the root cause".
- atmavatar 2mo agoThe US and Brazil have eaten a lot of beef for a significant amount of time, so that had already been priced into the market. A sudden spike in price requires a change in the market - e.g., the Chinese suddenly starting to eat more beef, wildfires wiping out grazing land, fuel price spikes making it more expensive to ship the product around, screwworm outbreaks reducing cattle headcount, crackdown on migrant workers reducing available labor for meatpacking plants, etc.
- pamircake 2mo ago[dead]
- JohnTHaller 2mo agoInflation mainly. And it's going to get worse as the Republicans appear to keep purposely doing things to cause inflation (tariffs, pointless wars based on ego, negotiating in bad faith and making money from said failed negotiations by insider trading, etc).
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- bob1029 2mo ago> And while meatpacking companies have increased the prices they charge for their beef, there is a limit. This is because supermarkets, restaurants – and US consumers – can, and will, simply switch to buying chicken or cheaper imported beef instead. I think you would be amazed at how cost insensitive some Americans are and how large that cohort is. Ground beef would have to exceed $20/lb before I would consider altering my routine. If you are buying one cut at a time and not being very efficient with it, the prices are certainly ridiculous. If each gram of beef is carefully prepared and allocated across weeks of meal prep, the economic situation changes pretty substantially. Batching effects can make it easier to afford expensive ingredients.
- ButlerianJihad 2mo agoFor a bachelor lifestyle, eating at home is appallingly wasteful. If I order delivery, I'm tossing out combo meals and unsolicited sides after paying $50+. If I shop for groceries, there are cans of soup too large for one sitting, there are canned vegetables too copious for one recipe, there are too many capers to use up before they expire, etc. I was clearly deluded about the role of a supermarket butcher. Because when I rocked up to the counter, I saw appetizing cuts of steak and pork and swordfish, all carefully portioned for two or three servings. Now butcher shops have menus and price lists, but they do not come with a brochure, or instructions or a User Manual for the Inexperienced Householder. So I ring the bell and a guy appears, wearing white coveralls and a hairnet and knows how to use knives. And I ask the butcher man, "could you kindly cut these swordfish steaks in half please?" And the man behind the counter attempts to demur: "oh... we aren't supposed to do that... oh, sanitary regulations... I shouldn't..." So this is understandable, if post-processing food introduces health risks, I guess, but I stopped purchasing pre-packaged meats and freshly butchered meats, and especially no frozen meat, because the portions were made for couples and families, and regardless if the "expiration dates" were real or not, I could not stand there at home and hack apart a filet before cooking or thawing. Passing strange, these delusions, that I thought butchers could cut meats for customers. I am seeking professional help.
- laughing_man 2mo agoThere are certainly people who are insensitive to beef prices, but a lot of people aren't. I stopped buying ground beef when it went over $10/lb at my local supermarket. Pork and chicken haven't gone up nearly as much.
- bicepjai 2mo agoAs a society, we have organized ourselves in a form where the marketers get the most cut than the producers of goods and services. It’s unfortunate and amendable with capable leaders