The Fox Business correspondent, Jeff Flock, discusses the record prices of the chopped beef due to supply problems on “Varney & Co.”
The high beef prices weighed on American companies and consumers.
They have forced some companies to make difficult decisions about how to manage costs, and some transmit costs to customers.
Rob Passio, the owner of the main Lombardi meats in Philadelphia, said Fox Business correspondent Jeff Flock On “Varney & Co” that “, there is only a few things that you can absorb with regard to the success of your results before telling yourself that you have to increase these prices.”
The butcher’s store, said Passio, has not seen its customers baking at higher prices “because they see it”.
Eggs are not the only expensive foods: beef prices are also up
Organic chopped beef October 30, 2020, in Bavaria, Nuremberg (Daniel Karmann / Picture Alliance via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“They see inflation. They see the price. You know, everything is in place, “he told Flock.
Data on the inflation of the Bureau of Labor Statistics measured by the Consumer Price Index (IPC) showed that beef and veal prices increased by 2.4% per month and 7.6% from one year to the next in February.
The Global IPC posted an increase of 0.2% from one month to another and a jump of 2.8% from one year to the next.
Courtney Schmidt, sector director at Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, said Renard business Last month, high beef prices were driven by a tighter American beef production with a constant demand from consumers.
The herd of American cattle experiences a drop cycle, with livestock stocks at historically low levels in 2025, according to Schmidt.
The beef request has remained strong from the pandemic, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. (Kennedy Hayes / Fox News / Fox News)
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported at the end of January that American farms had 86.7 million heads of cattle and calves. The count for beef cows in particular was 27.9 million, a drop of 1% compared to the same era last year, according to the USDA.
“I know they kill smaller cattle, so they are trying, I suppose, to kill them faster to create the supply that the request needs,” said Passio.
Some large companies get the beef of Canada and Mexico, Varney & Co.
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President Donald Trump imposed 25% of import rates On the goods entering the United States of these two countries on March 4 and, more recently, have brought exemptions for Mexico and Canada on goods under the American-mexico-Canada agreement until the beginning of April.
Such a debit on imported beef “would increase the price”, according to Passio, adding that consumers “will pay for this”.
“My philosophy is to sell it as low as possible to show a saving, a value to the customer. And I hope you have more customers to generate your income,” said Lombardi Prime Meats owner in Flock.
Beef packages are displayed for sale in a supermarket on January 12, 2023 in Foster City, California. (Liu Guanguan / China News Service / VCG via Getty Images / Getty Images)
In the United States, the chopped beef was on average $ 5.63 per book in February, while the price per book of boned surlong steak came at $ 11.90, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. These average prices were 9.6% and 1.6% respectively, respectively that the same month in 2024.
The USDA has planned in a report published this month that the production of American beef is about to amount to 26.685 billion pounds this year.
Daniella Genovese has contributed to this report.
