Meat prices in the United States economy, as of July, were 5.9% higher than a year earlier, a significantly higher inflation than the officially reported retail price of food as a whole, and above the overall consumer price index inflation of 5.6%. But that increase pales in comparison to the way meat processing giants Tysons and JBS have raised their prices to wholesale customers such as restaurants – 20-30%, depending on the type of meat product.
As a result, even though cattle and hog ranchers are getting prices per hundredweight recently which are higher than in previous years, the big meatpackers’ margin is at the record level of $1,000 per head of cattle, which was reached in May 2020. At that time the meat supply chain had broken down completely due to inhuman working conditions causing COVID outbreaks at meatpacking plants; and the meatpackers used their own disruption to raise their profit margin — over and above the prices paid to meat producers — to a record. Now Kansas ranchers’ advocate Mike Callicrate reports that as of the end of August the meatpackers’ price margin had reached $1,300 per head. His word for it is “stealing.”
