Bad News on Beef Prices

BobBrisket said:

How many UDS, Kettle, wood, etc, threads do we have out there? Matter of fact, all the topics come around again and again. We don't need to read and respond to every thread if we don't like the topic. I'm sure this topic will come up again. It will be okay then too.

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Understood. I just feel like a lot of it is B.S. (just like when gas prices go up) that we can all fight with our wallets instead of just blindly accepting it.

I operate a bbq restaurant in wading river, ny. www.northforkbacon.com I'll be flat out honest, we pay right around $4/lb for CAB brisket packers. We buy approximately 200lbs a week, over 5 cases so we get a quantity discount. The prices of beef are high, and unfortunately our prices have to reflect that. Coming in at $4/lb your average yield of a restaurant brisket(can't be serving people a 1/8lb of fat when they're paying for a 1/4lb of meat) is right around 50%. So before factoring in cooking costs, packaging, etc, i'm at $8/lb I charge $24/lb for brisket, to put out 4 1/4lb orders it cost me over $11 so my pricing is spot on, if not a little low. People don't understand the little costs that add up very quickly. Beef price is high, herds are low, fuel is astronomically high. Things aren't going to change.

What does piss me off, is places who cook and serve "brisket" yet cook off other sub standard cuts of meat and push it out as "chopped brisket". Same is going on with pork, many places have switched to the leaner, cheaper, and horrible cushion meat, and will still advertise it as boston butt. The bbq restaurant game is changing. Places that will continue to offer quality, will have to charge a premium for it, then there will be the places that go for quantity and price savings, with much lower quantity.

Swine Spectator said:

None taken. I have seen several threads about high prices and some that explained the pork virus, but I had not seen a good explanation of beef prices. This article covered drought, herd size, demand from fast food industry, and herd recovery time. I thought it added more to the discussion.

David

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:hand:Hell I'm livin it! I shipped the last of my cows yesterday. :tsk:

instead of trying to help the cattle ranchers through this crisis, here is where some of our hard earned tax money is going

I just heard about this on the radio

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/70637ed6-bece-11e3-a1bf-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2yPBjUHyD

My wife texted this $2.99 brisket to me Friday.

I told her to pick one up, but I maybe should have gotten more.

I bought a pound of ground beef the other day for $3.78 just last week it was $2.75. :tsk:

BobBrisket said:

I'm seriously thinking about buying and processing a goat or lamb too. Locally, for the price, I can't beat it to process and stuff it in the freezer. I can do the same with a whole hog, but it's a bit more work and takes up lots of freezer space. However, if a deal comes through, that piggy is in the deep freeze!

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Go for it Bob! Definitely worth the effort. If you run out of freezer space, can the meat. It takes one day of hard work but the jars will feed you for months.

I'm sittin' alright. Have plenty of pork, beef and poultry on hand, both fresh and in the freezer or canned. Will hatch out more chickens and ducks for meat soon.
Got 2 nice deer last rifle season...that's plenty for me. Have quite a bit of fish I caught in the freezer and fishing season is just getting started again for me. Have plenty of quail and dove from hunting last fall.
Now if I can nurse my garden through another dry summer, I'll be fine in the veggie department.

Don't be surprised when pork goes up. Talk radio last night report high mortality with the piglets from some viral disease that the farmers didn't see coming last year.

BBQ Obsessions said:

Don't be surprised when pork goes up. Talk radio last night report high mortality with the piglets from some viral disease that the farmers didn't see coming last year.

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scroll down a bit and you can read all about it here

BBQ Brethren has it all covered

:-D

This makes me sad.

Looks like propane prices this winter. I'll probably do a lot more keeping and not just fishing to cut down on the food bills.

MidnightStokersBBQ said:

This makes me sad.

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JazzyBadger said:

The only beef I absolutely must have in my freezer is brisket. I can just grind that stuff down to make hamburgers. I'll make us some steaks every now and again, but pork, fish, and chicken work just fine for me realistically.
Of course now pork's the new beef price wise it seems.

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you can grind briskut into burgers?

HossIsBoss said:

I bought a pound of ground beef the other day for $3.78 just last week it was $2.75. :tsk:

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Dang. yes, here I saw some the other day for 4.48/lb for 80/20

cowgirl said:

Go for it Bob! Definitely worth the effort. If you run out of freezer space, can the meat. It takes one day of hard work but the jars will feed you for months.

I'm sittin' alright. Have plenty of pork, beef and poultry on hand, both fresh and in the freezer or canned. Will hatch out more chickens and ducks for meat soon.
Got 2 nice deer last rifle season...that's plenty for me. Have quite a bit of fish I caught in the freezer and fishing season is just getting started again for me. Have plenty of quail and dove from hunting last fall.
Now if I can nurse my garden through another dry summer, I'll be fine in the veggie department.

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Sounds like you really work to live.:thumb: I feel sometimes I'm living to work:tsk:, my dad called it the rat race. He left high paying job to move away from it all in his forties. I worry that being a ninja defines me.

Here is the USDA's report from this past week. You can compare weekly increases and also last year's price.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/lswbfrtl.pdf

Time to pass on the great tradition of hunting. There's a lot to be said for taking a kid hunting and teaching them to appreciate the natural world. Keep the tradition alive! On that note, why not liven this thread up a bit with some pron. I just finished a fresh ham this past weekend from a wild hog my buddy shot. Sure beats $4+/lb. in the store!

does that include grass fed beef prices?

Latest case pricing at Sam's

Took a cruise into Sam's at lunch in the hopes that prices wouldn't be such a horror story. Well.....guess I was wrong. Kinda hard to read so I transcribed below:

Chicken wings $1.78/lb
Spare ribs $2.23/lb
Pork loin back ribs $3.05/lb
Pork butt $2.06/lb
Pork loin boneless $2.65/lb
Chicken fryers $.89/lb

Ouch!

Tyson frozen wings are about the same and you don't have to pay for the wing tip.