Every month or so I will grab meat that suits my fancy or that is on sale or marked down.
The other day I did some food shopping and picked up some ground beef.
I rotate my stock from the freezer as I add to my stockpile.
What was interesting is the price-per-lb hasn't changed in just over a year.
Check out the frozen pack date and price compared to the one I just bought.
I'll have to compare the price of chicken from a year ago and will report back at some point.
From a conversation with someone that raises cattle, the market at their end hasn't been a windfall as some people think. Price hikes are due to increase fuel costs and tax increases by the pigs at the public trough. If I had to guess, the supplier for your meat is trying to stay in business and lowering profits to offset costs. In the end, they'll have to increase the price or fail.
ReplyDeleteI can personally attest to that fact.
DeleteSometimes companies have "loss leaders" that they advertise to get folks into the store. Meanwhile, the price of everything else has gone up or has been raised to cover the other loss. Its always great to be able to take advantage of good prices, and I have seen similar with stuff we regularly buy....but overall, the prices store-wide have gone way up.
ReplyDeleteI worked in the retail meat industry for over 38 years and I can tell you that once a price goes up , it rarely comes down.
ReplyDeleteWholesalers and packing plants basically set the prices while most retailers just try to maintain their profit margins. Starting around 2001 , large retail chains started aggressively pushing their master butchers out in favor of prepackaged meats from packers , who employ a lot of undocumented labor. The great replacement has been in effect longer than people realize.
After years of paying union dues, their unions did nothing. Cheap illegals are more valuable to the democrat party than are dues paying members. The unions know their freshly stabbed in the back, long time dues paying members will still vote commie, no matter what.
DeleteBefore 2020, I was buying a whole beef for about $3.20/lb. That included "cut and wrap". I basically would pay somewhere around $2,600 depending on the weight of the cow. That's $3.20/lb for burger...but that's also $3.20/lb for Ribeye steaks.
ReplyDeleteAround spring of 2022 I bought another cow The cost had just gone up to $3.90/lb. At that point, a 1 pound "tube" of burger at Walmart (the cheapest commercial sale in the county) was going for ~$6.50, and a month later it was up to $9/lb.
I just called my local cash-under-the-table guy, and the cost is now $4.25/lb making a whole cow around $3,200. Walmart finally came down and is currently sitting at ~$3.62/lb...which is cheaper than the locally-grown, non-commercial stuff...but I'll take the locally-grown, non-commercial stuff any day.
I'm expecting the price of beef at the store to spike within the next month or two.
I just pulled 50 pounds of homemade jerky out of the smoker last night, vacuum sealed it, and tossed it in the freezer.
There's an easy way to look at the situation: Food prices almost always go up, which means there's no time like the present to prep, preserve, smoke, salt, freeze dry, retort and can to save food.
In a year, I'll probably be sitting here thinking "thank God I preserved a 750 pound cow at $4.25/lb--now it's over $5".
The same applies to guns and ammo. ;)
Buy primers large and small.
DeleteTuesday, I took my more or less bimonthly trip to BJ's club. The rib-eyes we buy as a treat (usually one a week, but sometimes not) were $10.49/lb, where they've been for most of the last year. I think it was last February when they spiked up to $13.99, so we settled for lower cost cuts. In the next visit they were a little cheaper, and were back to this week's price by summer. All of this from memory, so details about the dates may be off. Point: prices went up then came back down.
ReplyDeleteOn everything I remembered the previous prices for, they stayed the same since October. Beef, bacon, some cheeses, a few other things.
Half an angus steer, 1200 bucks EastTN.
ReplyDeleteThat's about the going rate. Also in east TN. 500 for a whole hog before processing.
DeleteThe Costco 5 lb freezer pack was $16.95 pre covid. The price went up a dollar over the first year of covid and then was dropped back to $16.95 but it was for a 4 lb freezer pack. They changed it back to a 5 lb freezer pack earlier this year and it is $18.95 right now. What has changed the most is the better cuts of steaks.
ReplyDeleteRemember that free money biden was giving everyone? I’m not a financial genius but it didn’t take much to see that his “free money” would raise prices.
ReplyDeleteOr that's some really old re-labelled meat.
ReplyDeleteBear Claw
It's fall. The ranchers are still culling the herds in advance of winter, so beef prices are down right now. Due to the drought out west, the herds will remain smaller, so expect the price of beef to go up and stay up. And then there's the over $5 diesel prices...
ReplyDeleteThey have been culling herds since summer due to the drought.
DeleteBear Claw
Beef on the hoof is down 50% over this time last year here in TX. Ranchers are indeed culling back their herds so they can afford to feed the ones they keep over the winter. So the over abundance of supply has kept the price down artificially while everything else in the supermarket has had its price hiked. Winter into spring is going to be UGLY for beef prices and availability in the stores. So grab a side of beef from your nearest local rancher, and hang on, 'cause it's about to get bumpy.
DeleteI no longer buy ground beef. Why take the chance? Hardly a month goes by without hearing about a recall of some meat product for something that will make you sick or worse. I buy whole roasts on sale. Take it home and grind it up with my KitchenAid. I know exactly what I'm getting. 100% beef. Not something that has who knows what's in it or if it fell on the floor and then thrown into the grinder.. I then vacuum seal it and stick it in the freezer.
ReplyDeleteHave you considered investing in a vacuum sealer?
ReplyDeleteI did about a year ago. Irish
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