Extreme weather has thinned the nation's cattle herds, roiling the beef supply chain from rancher to restaurant.
Come grilling season, expect your sirloin steak to come with a hearty side of sticker shock.
Beef prices have reached all-time highs in the U.S. and aren't expected to come down any time soon.
Extreme weather has thinned the nation's beef cattle herds to levels last seen in 1951, when there were about half as many mouths to feed in America.
"We've seen strong prices before but nothing this extreme," said Dennis Smith, a commodities broker for Archer Financial Services in Chicago. "This is really new territory."
The retail value of "all-fresh" USDA choice-grade beef jumped to a record $5.28 a pound in February, up from $4.91 the same time a year ago. The same grade of beef cost $3.97 as recently as 2008.
The swelling prices are roiling the beef supply chain from rancher to restaurant.
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8 comments:
It will hit hardest those who are on food stamps. The rest of us were not buying it at $4.91 a pound.
Obama and his people say there is no inflation,I see otherwise every time I go to the supermarket,get gas or fix my car.
thank you 9:39 because we don't buy much, if at all, beef anymore.
becoming a meatless household
BS
This is a good time to become a vegetarian or closer to it. Still got to be careful with all the GMOs, processed crap and contamination of the food supply in general. Europe has banned the import of a lot of American food products for these reasons.
9:13 If you only knew the payoffs involved in this whole "non gmo" "organic" media push, you would start eating meat again. I raise all of my own meat, and veggies. Beef is obtainable at $2.50 locally, if you know where to look. Pork is going up, too.
These price increases have a lot to do with ethanol production. Much like Obamacare, the government mandated that gasoline producers put a percentage of ethanol in their fuel, without fully understanding the consequences. The price of corn went up, the price of gasoline went up, the price of meat went up, ethanol seriously hurts small engines. Finally, since US food aid is in the form of food, not dollars more people of the world are starving. Should we still consider it a good thing?
No, 12:39, but who will listen? Our congressmen are on a different payroll than we are...
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