America’s Meat Products are the Best
America is very fortunate to have strong meat options at the grocery store. I’m only talking about beef, pork and lamb – we’ll leave chicken and turkey for another time.
In past years, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans didn’t favor meat as much as it did an all-vegetable diet.
Lately, however, people are looking for healthy sources of protein more often, and meat is being recognized by consumers for its many benefits and all of the ways they can cook lamb, pork and beef.
Because of the protein factor, consumers are looking at meat in a new light today. I think it really all started during COVID-19 when meat was not as plentiful. Most people just wanted ground beef, but when ground beef wasn’t available, they started looking at pork, lamb and other cuts of beef.
Once consumers tried lamb, it became a lot more popular.
American lamb has had a terrible time throughout the years because Australia and New Zealand were allowed to import cheaper lamb products into the U.S. I’m sure it was an inferior product, but they had a large supply that American lamb couldn’t challenge.
American lamb supply is growing and so are the prices for those who raise it, along with a stronger wool market.
Pork has always been a strong alternative, but the prices pork producers have been receiving have been dropping lately.
Pork has become an export product in the last few years, as demand from Mexico and other countries is increasing. I’ve heard close to one-half of America’s pork is exported to Mexico and other Central American countries.
America’s beef is strong today despite meatpackers’ over capacity and some feedlots in the Southwest are having financial issues with the U.S.-Mexico Border being closed to Mexican cattle.
The breeding of beef bulls to dairy cows is a great benefit, not only for dairy producers but also for feeders and packinghouses.
Today, data shows there are close to four million cattle on feed in the U.S. with a milk cow as a mother. That’s astounding. This new source of income – beef-on-dairy calves – is now getting close to the income of milk produced by the dairy industry.
Across the meat sector, labor, tariffs and high input costs are hurting everyone in the industry. Despite these impacts, beef is holding its own.
At this point in the cattle cycle, the number one threat to ending rising markets is a recession. The other threat is increasing the nation’s cattle herd numbers too fast for producers.
So far, there are no signs of a meaningful heifer retention taking place. This absence of a herd extension without a recession is telling cattle producers they will experience higher cattle prices for some time to come.
Consumers have responded favorably to the improved quality of American beef, lamb and pork. We can see it in the strong demand worldwide. Thanks to better genetics by producers and aggressive checkoffs, consumers have the best meat in the world coming from the U.S.
