Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is visiting with the Executive Director of Market Research and Intelligence for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Mike Simone, about keeping up with today’s beef consumer.
Despite economic pressures like inflation and higher beef prices, Simone says that consumer demand for beef is at an all-time high with record sales – $40 billion worth of beef. He detailed how beef accounts for more than half of the fresh meat in consumer diets. The 6 billion pounds of beef in volume didn’t quite break records, but it is a remarkable amount of beef sold, all things considered.
“Consumers have stuck with us, but a year ago at this time, we didn’t quite think that would be the case with tighter supplies, contraction of the cattle herd, and fewer cattle going to harvest,” Simone explained. “The market responded. There are heavier cattle now. They are staying on feed longer. Greater weights and increases in imports helped offset the losses in total number of head going to harvest.”
Despite the market challenges, consumers continue to love beef and purchase it even with the elevated prices. Beef continues to be the number one choice; chicken did better in volume of sales, but Simone attributed that to the lower price value due to the current economic climate.
“We continue to focus on the value, versatility, and convenience factor for beef at Beefitswhatsfordinner.com in terms of recipe development and what you can do with leftovers and trying to compete with chicken in that regard as well,” Simone stated.
Beef tends to rank at the top of the list in consumer rankings fifty to sixty percent of the time. According to Simone, that is a major influence as consumers buy with their taste buds over prices.
“The quality of the beef is just that much better than it was twenty or thirty years ago,” Simone pointed out. “Consumers know and appreciate that, and they continue to open their wallets and buy our products.”
On the beefitswhatsfordinner.com website, useful recipes for alternate cuts of beef on a budget-friendly basis became very popular during the COVID pandemic.
Part of Simone’s work with the Beef Checkoff is to track consumer willingness to pay for a pound of steak and a pound of ground beef compared to the current retail price at the grocery store. “During COVID – 2020-2021, even somewhat into 2022, those two metrics were pretty close to one another,” he detailed. “Now, we are seeing the gap start to widen, whereas the price is much more than what they are willing to pay by about $1.25. That is cause for concern. Also, looking out into 2025, supplies are going to be tighter, and prices are going to get higher. Imports – there will be a slight increase, but not what we saw this last year, so there is going to be additional pressure on the consumer to stick with us. So far, they have, and demand has been robust, but will that hold? I don’t know. That is a big question mark for me.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR for today’s show, and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
