Posted on 12/08/2025 2:55:33 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Joe Biden and the Democrats drove beef inflation to about six percent a year—more than twice the rate during the Trump years. There were many reasons why.
Biden’s Green New Deal policies drove up the cost of fuel, feed, and fertilizer. His “eat soy” range war against ranchers restricted access to grazing lands. His drunken-sailor spending fueled historic food-price inflation.
But all of these drivers were amplified — and exploited — by extreme market concentration in the beef industry.
The Big Beef Four — Cargill, JBS (Brazil), Tyson Foods, and National Beef — control 80 to 85 percent of U.S. fed‑cattle slaughter capacity and boxed‑beef sales. That’s more than twice the level where economists start worrying about monopolistic price gouging.
That is no small worry here, because middleman Big Beef commands the ultimate supply chain position. Upstream, Big Beef behaves as an oligopsony — a buyers’ cartel in which a handful of packers can push cattle prices down, weaken price discovery, and shortchange ranchers who have no real alternative buyers. Downstream, Big Beef operates as an oligopoly, shaping what supermarkets, restaurant chains, and ultimately consumers pay.
A growing stack of antitrust cases confirms the problem. Tyson and Cargill are paying $87.5 million to settle consumer claims that they conspired to inflate beef prices by restricting supply. JBS is paying $83.5 million to resolve allegations that it helped suppress cattle prices. McDonald’s alleges the same pattern.
Just how does Big Beef gouge us? First, because the Big Four own nearly all of America’s large slaughter and processing facilities, they can time “maintenance,” slow production lines, or idle operations to choke supply — even when cattle numbers are strong. That lets Big Beef shrink demand for fed cattle, push down rancher prices, and fatten profit margins at...
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Probably
No need to do that. Just deregulate the small local packing industry and stop requiring small operations to have a USDA inspector onsite.
Then watch the magic happen.
Trump said it all....We'll import more beef.
Folks,
if you don’t like big beef find a local locker/processer to support.
Break everything up!
Right now there are only 5 major beef processors, dominating the U.S. market, Tyson Foods, JBS, Cargill, National Beef, and Smithfield Foods.
They control 85% of the market.
They are making money but the people who raise the cattle and take all the risk are not.
USDA IS THE MAIN PROBLEM.
I worked with them for years, and they are as worthless as a teat on a boar hog. It’s a large-scale swindling scam. It wouldn’t be hard to believe that the Big 4 put pressure on inspectors to go into smaller plants to wreak havoc.
The inherent problem with the USDA inspection process is that the inspectors HAVE to look the other way to a certain degree, otherwise they can work themselves out of a job.
And to your point about deregulation of inspection(I made this argument with our USDA inspector one time): Who carries the liability insurance? You or us?
When feeder cattle are $3.35/lb on the hoof, the middleman is NOT the problem.
Not even close.
Feeder cattle on the very young (approx 600lbs) taken off grass and sent to the feed lot where a BUNCH more cost is added...feed...medical care...human supervision...transport etc.
Live cattle are those that have been fattened and ready for slaughter. They only fetch about $2.20/lb but they’re about 1,500 lbs.
So, that fattened animal is worth around $3,300. On the hoof. At 50% utilization by the butcher that’s around $4.40/lb.
Your middlemen turn that carcass into 700-800lbs of vacuum packed beef and ship it to large supermarkets, butchers etc.
All along the way there’s shipping costs, refrigeration, packaging, testing, cleaning etc.
All this equals burger at $5/lb and NY Steak at $20/lb in the market. Add 20% for the good stuff.
The price of beef will NOT go down until the price of feed, care, transportation and packaging goes down.
So, the price of beef is not going down no matter how much damage the regulators do to the packers. And it will very likely go up further with market meddling.
Fopr the last 3 years we put deer and moose into our freezer, so we now buy almost no beef at all.
It just too darned expensive for us.
We cannot pay 120.00 for 4 x 1inch thick T bone steaks.
THe beef industry has ruined the market for themselves. The meat just sits in the store coolers until they have to throw it out.
I am a small rancher in Oklahoma. Prices have not been “pushed down”
McDonald’s is big enough to operate its own meat packing plants.
Yes.
Why don’t we just nationalize it?
We want government in control, so lets put government in control.
How is breaking up companies in order to have competition, government control?
Thanks for pointing this easy solution out.
I would love to see the USDA fully and entirely abolished off the face of the earth. It scares me to think government controls our food supply.
Yet when I say it should be abolished people look at me cross eyed. Even people who will within a 15 second stretch say they love the U.S. Constitution.
It’s like unplugging people from the matrix - realistically you can only unplug like 3 of them, the rest of them just aren’t ready for life on their own. They’d all do a Cypher on you if they had the chance all the while they told you they know full well the steak isn’t there and they do not care.
After a big ICE raid at the local Swift plant several years ago, there are illegal Somalis doing the jobs illegal Mexicans won’t do. And their kids are copying the Mexicans and forming gangs.
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