Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is visiting with the President of Certified Angus Beef, John Stika, about an outlook on CAB for 2024. Stika said it all starts with demand for the brand.
“As an industry, we probably all are very pleased with the consumer’s willingness to continue to pay for high quality products, and that is what we are seeing with Certified Angus Beef,” Stika said.
Even with inflation and more factors at play, Stika said the value consumers see within the CAB brand speaks volumes to the work that has been done in the industry.
“The consumer just continues to come forward with the desire to pay for products that bring them satisfaction,” Stika said. “As cattle producers, we are no different. We just don’t oftentimes think of ourselves as consumers.”
Today’s market is supply-driven, Stika said, as the prices seen today reflect the smaller cow herd numbers.
“It is putting dollars back into the pockets of farming and ranching families in rural America that we really depend on as an industry, and they have earned the right to prosper during this period of time, especially while they are having to pay higher prices for inputs, and so forth,” Stika said. “We need these market prices to be high.”
High market prices have also helped to keep ranchers optimistic about rebuilding the cow herd, Stika said, and he feels that the Angus breed will be at the heart of the American cowherd rebuild.
“We are not as good as we can be,” Stika said. “We are better than we were, but we know there is still a lot of opportunity to improve.”
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