4 responses to “Meat Packing Collusion”

1. 

   Magrit

   November 9, 2025 at 12:44 pm

   I am still waiting for Trump to go after the pharmaceutical companies who are doing the exact same thing. He promised us that we would only have to pay the same price for any drug that would be the same as the lowest price in other countries

2. 

   Mary

   November 9, 2025 at 12:58 pm

   I saw an annoying comment today that I would have answered but I’m trying to keep a low profile. Someone asserted that it couldn’t be the packers that are causing the high prices because locally raised butcher beef is selling for the same price as in the big stores. They thought local beef should be a lot cheaper.

   I happen to be one of those local producers – my animals are raised organic in every way except participating in the administrative process. Mine are totally grass fed and are higher quality than any stock yard produced beef and are free of vaccines and antibiotics and are eating pesticide free grass and hay. I don’t raise many animals but for the ones I do raise, the consumer can know exactly how they have been raised and what the consumer will be eating. Why should a locally produced, superior product be priced at below ‘market rates’?

   Live sale prices are good this year. Most recent years, hay prices have been so high, local small producers have been fortunate if they more than just break even.

   Regulation plays a big part in meat prices and very much favors the big producers and the packers. A fair analysis based on facts is needed for the purpose of educating the consumer.

   1. 

      Joe Blow

      November 10, 2025 at 6:12 am

      AMEN Mary, thanks for sharing! I get my beef a half-a-steer at time from a local fellow, handles the butchering and everything for $4.25/lb HANGING WEIGHT. The beef that actually hits my freezer came in at $10.48/lb. 100% angus, 18 months old, the most delicious beef you’ll ever eat. I don’t even LOOK at the beef at my grocer anymore, I’ve tried buying it since, and I simply don’t want to eat it, no matter how cheap. My money’s with Clarence, I don’t even ask the price anymore. Here’s my deposit and cut sheet, call me w/ the final price when it’s ready to pickup.

      1. 

         Latigo Morgan

         November 11, 2025 at 6:58 pm

         I buy my beef locally, as well. I will gladly pay a few more dollars/lb over the stores. The one I got this summer is so tender and good. The flavor is indescribable. Anyone who has tried this beef has said they are ruined for storebought beef. The grilled fat on the NY strips and ribeyes tastes like hot buttered popcorn, and the meat is practically fork tender. This was an angus, raised up the road from me and processed by a small custom meat cutter who is also local.

         My brother-in-law was pissed. His beef that he raised was still on the teat at 1 yr. old. Should have been just as succulent as mine, but when he took his to a guy who is an Ag professor at the university for butchering, he asked him to allow the steer a day or two to calm down from the ride and being taken away from its mother. The dude didn’t even wait an hour. The meat is tough and gamey tasting (adrenaline dump will do that to an animal).