Beef has become a rarity in a lot of places and they say it's a supply/demand issue, but at this point I wonder if some of it is price gouging. I know some meat plants have had to close, but I think they've been encouraged to stay open because we need them, I suppose.
When we find beef at a good price, we buy a big pack and freeze it.
We have been stretching the meats we have because they've been more expensive. Two chicken thighs, even bone-in ones can be put into a stir fry and stretched with extra veggies. I figure as Americans we probably eat more meat than we honestly should anyway so perhaps piling on the veggies with less meat isn't going to hurt. Crock pots have been life savers, too...a couple pieces of a skillet steak over some potatoes and carrots and you have a great beef stew with little meat.
I totally hear you, though. It's not that cheap right now. If I'm going to pay these kind of prices, I might as well be buying all organic/grass-fed. I kind of wish I was raising my own meat right now.
The beef raised in TN is cutter quality...the kind used in frozen Salisbury steak dinners, canned beef stew, and canned beef soup.
Most of the beef that we see in the grocery markets is coming from either Iowa or Colorado. There are two humongous beef processing plants in these places...I think that it's down to these two as the one in Illinois got closed for everyone being sick. Many of the chicken processing plants around here in the South East have had to close because everyone was sick. There's another processing plant in Florida...they handle a lot of the utility beef that goes into fast food because lots of milk comes from Florida too.
All that beef, chicken, and pork production is usually done by contract.
Meaning that the animals are brought to a farm and all of their feed is brought too...a farmer is just in charge of their daily care and paid by the pound when the animals are brought to market.
Very different than it used to be.
The contracts are still in place...but the delivery of the animals to the processing plants is the problem. The processing plants get closed and then it's trouble.
Shipments of contract animals is staggered so that the plant doesn't get overwhelmed at any one time. They also don't have facilities to feed and water and care for the animals either. (That's not why they are there)
Dressed Beef is usually hung to age for two to three weeks before it gets broken down into smaller pieces and sold in market cuts. (Still larger pieces than most households will purchase but these are the pieces I will buy)
Everything is on a time schedule and contracts. This is simply a problem with the supply chain. It's not completely broken...but it ain't working either.
One to two months ago I said that we were going to have an issue with food pricing and availability. This is going to continue for a while.
America feeds 60% of the world with it's processed food...I don't want to think about what is going to happen to European and Asian market places.
For us...it's an inconvenient thing to have such high prices...food usually takes less than a fourth to fifth of the average American household budget.
Living in an area where food takes a third to half of a budget...thats a problem.