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The prices of American beef hover to record summits, because the country's livestock inventory reaches its lowest level in more than 70 years, putting other strains on the grocery bills of the Americans.
The average price of a chopped beef book has increased to $ 5.79 In American cities in March, an increase of 12.8% in the past year and the most recorded, according to data from the Labor Department. The price of non -cooked beef steaks has also reached record peaks at $ 10.98 per book.
A drought of several years in the West American has dried grazing land and American breeders have regularly shrunk their herds, creating a shortage that increased the price of calves and ultimately other beef products.
Map and insurance costs have also increased and even if cattle reach heavier weights than ever, it is not enough to compensate for falling staff.
“Beef is experiencing the most difficult market conditions we have ever seen,” said Donnie King, Managing Director of Tyson Foods, the largest American meat, during analysts during the publication of the company's second quarter of the company on Monday.
The result is that Todd Foley, an actual financial director of Kroger, called “disproportionate inflation” on beef, even if the prices of other foods, with the exception of eggs, should remain “stable”. Food prices, and in particular those of eggs, were a source of frustration for consumers and a goal of the Trump administration.
Persistent inflation was a key theme of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2024, and he increased food prices. Higher meat costs will weigh on the feeling of consumers, especially at the start of the summer grill season.
Tyson said its customers had started to go to lower quality cuts or more affordable meats such as chicken, as the average price of its beef products increased by 8.2% between February and April. The change cost $ 181 million in Tyson of $ 181 million in the six months which ended in March, although chickens sales transported the packaging of meat to benefit from the expectations of the above analysts.
The rise in prices may have tightened meat packaging which must now pay more for livestock, but they were a boon for breeders, who were pressed by increasing the cost of increasing livestock.
“My neighbor, he will sell all the cows in his place next Tuesday, and it is not because of the drought,” said Carl Ray Polk Jr, president of Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. “It is not necessarily because of its contribution cost. It is because the market is so high.”
“They take advantage of it as you would if it was your retirement account or any other investment. When the market is good, you can harvest a little. ”
The trend could delay the process of reconstruction of American cattle actions enough to reduce prices in grocery stores and restaurants.
Polk said that he increased his herd by 10% this year by keeping heifers he would normally sell. He hopes that the additional inventory will help him collect the even higher prices next year.
“I don't know if I do the right thing,” said Polk. “I am not an economist, but all the indications are that if we maintain a bad weather, the ups of the market do not disappear next month, let me say that.”
The high prices of cattle, combined at high interest rates, could make prohibitive for breeders to reconstruct their herds if they wish, added Polk. It takes up to 42 months to raise a buffoon of beef, which means that the livestock born this month would not be ready for slaughter before the fall of 2028.
David Anderson, cattle economist at Texas A & M University, said that it “was difficult to really see declining prices”.
“(Repoupulation) could be somehow started to happen, but does not really happen very quickly.”
