Increase in Beef Supply Should Cut Retail Prices
A mountain of meat has ended the longest rally in U.S. cattle prices since at least the 1960s, when baby boomers and McDonald’s ushered in the American burger boom. Not only have ranchers added to their herds, but consumers are being inundated with increased supplies of cheaper pork and poultry. Ground-beef prices are down from a record high 11 months ago, and buyers like Darden Restaurants Inc., owner of the LongHorn Steakhouse...
Grass-Fed Beef Fills Market Niche
Deleon Springs, Fla. — Cow No. 150, her pregnant belly bulging, nosed around rancher David Strawn’s pickup hoping to find something good to eat in the bed of the truck. For decades, Strawn’s family raised cows, lambs and pigs on this lakeside spread about 40 miles north of Orlando. But when his father died in 2002, Strawn shifted the family business to grass-fed cattle, eventually eliminating the other animals. Strawn loves a good...
Maker of Spam Grows With Deals, Ideas
Austin, Minn. — Consumers are becoming more leery of processed foods, yet Spam is still plugging along. Hormel Foods Corp. is even introducing a dried, bite-size snack version of the 78-year-old paragon of processing. At the same time, Hormel is crossing a new meat frontier — organic and natural — with its recent $775 million purchase of Applegate Farms. While Spam Snacks is a small bet and Applegate Farms a big one, they represent...
The Business of Agriculture: If Consumers Demand Local Meat, More Local Producers Will Supply It
At a farmers market last summer, I overheard a woman standing in line to buy some chicken say to her companion, “Wow, this is expensive. If we had more competition around here, we’d get better prices.” I almost blurted out that I thought she had it exactly backward, that it’s not the lack of farmers that is keeping prices high but rather it’s the lack of high prices that’s keeping farmers away. The problem, in other words, isn’t on...
The Business of Agriculture: If Consumers Demand Local Meat, More Local Producers Will Supply It
At a farmers market last summer, I overheard a woman standing in line to buy some chicken say to her companion, “Wow, this is expensive. If we had more competition around here, we’d get better prices.” I almost blurted out that I thought she had it exactly backward, that it’s not the lack of farmers that is keeping prices high but rather it’s the lack of high prices that’s keeping farmers away. The problem, in other words, isn’t on...
