Why Your Beef Is So Cheap!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: In the first quarter of 2025, Tyson's chicken division made a profit of $189 million, while their beef division. Yes, Tyson has a beef division, lost $117 million. Proof that chicken is propping up beef. So who are these big four? [00:00:20] Speaker B: Did you also know that they're the second largest beef producers in this country? In 2021, he hung up, hung up his combat boots and traded them for muck boots. And I gave up military schwanky balls and started, you know, using ball mason jars and putting food in them. Welcome to Dust or Mud. I'm Shelley. [00:00:43] Speaker A: I'm rich. [00:00:45] Speaker B: So we have a regenerative farm here in the Ozarks. And we farm beef, chicken, pork, lamb, milk and some eggs. And we like to talk about food freedom and farming, and they tie together often. Today it's. Is it about beef or is it about chicken? [00:01:03] Speaker C: Yeah, both. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Okay, so a lot of money. Lot. A lot of money. [00:01:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:10] Speaker A: What we're going to show today is that the. How there are four main beef producers in the United States of America and how they. The their size and the way that they are using different proteins, they're able to prop up their beef divisions with their other divisions, namely chicken. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Some of the information that we found out whenever we read this particular news article out of Meat Magazine, it was really eye opening because we have to price beef, we price chicken, and when we price our beef, we know what has gone into it and we know whether or not we can make even any money off of it. And we have to do some market pricing research while we're at it. And there were just a lot of. It was a lot of eye opening information for us. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. So who are these big four? I mentioned the big four and I mentioned Tyson. Tyson, yes. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Tyson Chicken. [00:02:17] Speaker A: No. Tyson Beef. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, did you guys know that Tyson even does beef? Have you seen Tyson, like on a package of hamburger? [00:02:28] Speaker C: No. [00:02:28] Speaker B: No. But did you also know that there's second largest beef producers in this country? [00:02:34] Speaker A: Yeah, but not by much. Tyson is 21% of the beef produced in this country. Tyson second only to JBS, which produces 23%. [00:02:47] Speaker B: Right. And together those four companies, two of which do not even. They're not American companies, they're Brazilian companies. [00:02:56] Speaker A: JBS and National Beef. [00:02:58] Speaker B: What nation? [00:02:59] Speaker A: Brazil. [00:03:00] Speaker B: Ah, so those two companies are not American companies. So of the two, 50% of them aren't even here. [00:03:09] Speaker C: Right. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Cargill is the fourth one. So we've got Tyson. Cargill. Those are American companies. JBS is Brazilian National Beef is the American side of Mar Frig, which is the parent company, which is Brazilian. [00:03:29] Speaker B: So these companies don't raise cattle. Ranchers raise cattle. [00:03:34] Speaker C: Right. [00:03:35] Speaker B: These companies don't background cattle. They don't raise stockers. [00:03:42] Speaker C: Right. [00:03:43] Speaker B: They don't even have, like, feedlots when they're getting towards the end. They don't. Those are. Those are other companies and beef producers that have these other operations. There are about. There are three different steps to the process in making beef. [00:04:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:02] Speaker B: What they do is buy it and package it up. They're the packer. They're literally the packer. These four, just the packers. That's all they do. [00:04:12] Speaker A: They kill it and process it. [00:04:13] Speaker B: They kill it. They process it and they box. [00:04:15] Speaker A: It shows up to their massive facilities. [00:04:19] Speaker B: So the thing is, there are the all. There's all of this other stuff going on within the beef industry, but these four companies owning 80% of the market share in the beef industry and packing and selling this beef, they control the prices across the board for what's going on in the beef industry. [00:04:42] Speaker C: Why? [00:04:43] Speaker B: Why? [00:04:43] Speaker A: What do you mean, why? [00:04:44] Speaker C: Why? [00:04:45] Speaker B: Because there's only four of them. [00:04:46] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:04:47] Speaker B: It's still monopolistic. [00:04:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:48] Speaker A: Well, in. In the 1920s, we broke up the meat packers when there were five of them with the Stockyards act. [00:04:56] Speaker C: Yep. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Now there are four of them, and they're not being broken up. [00:05:00] Speaker B: Why? You know, that is just a big question. It's kind of rhetorical. [00:05:04] Speaker A: We don't have an answer. [00:05:05] Speaker B: I don't have an answer other than. But the question is, why hasn't Congress or the Federal Trade Commission or whomever happens to be involved or is in charge and authorizes that these four companies can have 80% of your beef supply? [00:05:22] Speaker A: And two of them aren't even American. [00:05:24] Speaker B: I do believe that our senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, brought that up in a committee sometime within the past few weeks. And it's kind of. It's coming to the surface, but there's not anything really being done about it yet. [00:05:41] Speaker C: Yeah, not yet. [00:05:42] Speaker B: Okay. So beef prices. So you've got these four companies and. And they have 80% of the share of selling the beef to the American public, right? [00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah, they do. [00:05:55] Speaker B: And. [00:05:56] Speaker A: And I think one of the things that's weird is, like, I'm sure. Well, none of us. We don't look at a package of beef and. And read Tyson, as we said, and we don't read Cargill. You don't read jbs. You know, so what's going on? These companies are packing for everybody else. [00:06:22] Speaker C: Yep. [00:06:23] Speaker A: So it looks like you've got a choice. When you go to the grocery store, there's, you know, all these different brands of meat there and you've got your, you know, your grocery store brand and you've got your certified Angus beef. And they're all coming from the same four packers though. [00:06:46] Speaker B: So it's very deceiving. We think that we're voting with our wallet when we go to the store and we buy something with a really cool package, a little a label on it that says natural, whatever, all Angus beef, 100% certified us, whatever. And it looks like it was raised and some of them really do look like they were farm raised, grass fed out in the middle of the, you know, pastures of Wyoming. And that's not the case at all. But that's a really pretty label that one of these four companies is using through another outlet. [00:07:21] Speaker A: Yeah, Especially, you know, certified Angus. Well, my neighbor down the road raises Angus, so I'm sure this is his Angus. Right. I mean like that would just make sense. But no, no, that's not, that's not it at all. So let me give you the stats for the four companies. We've got JBS in the lead, they control 23%, Tyson has 21%, Cargill 19% and national has 17%. And add all of that up 80%. [00:07:51] Speaker B: That's crazy. That's crazy that we've allowed this to happen. That the people in charge have allowed what would be considered an, I guess, oligopoly. [00:08:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not necessarily monopoly, but it's. [00:08:05] Speaker B: So close, but it's very monopolistic in the fact that, that they're so big but yet there's so few of them. And it is rumored and I don't have any like for sure, for sure proof, but they. That there has been coercion between them and collusion. Sorry, yeah, wrong word. Collusion between those four for price setting. I've read that that's in if that's the case and if they can prove that. Have there not been lawsuits already? [00:08:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:41] Speaker B: To some of these companies. [00:08:42] Speaker C: Well. [00:08:42] Speaker A: And one of them paid out without admitting wrongdoing. [00:08:46] Speaker B: Right. So. But yet they forked over the money to just keep everything quiet. Yeah, so. So when you have an oligopoly. [00:09:00] Speaker C: The. [00:09:01] Speaker B: The point is everything is in jeopardy because of the, the consolidation. Right. [00:09:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:08] Speaker B: Ever. Because if your food supply and your beef supply is, is relying on four people, if something happens, cyber attack or some crazy, you know, some going on, you know, a pandemic, I don't Know something where they want to shut up food supply down, then our food supply is seriously in jeopardy. [00:09:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:36] Speaker B: Well, beef anyway. [00:09:40] Speaker A: But chicken, we're just talking about beef. It doesn't get any better with the rest of them. [00:09:44] Speaker B: No, but. [00:09:45] Speaker A: No, but beef is what we're talking about today from a, you know, from the, the perspective of these four companies, we're talking beef. The chicken, though, is what's propping it up. So they're able to take the losses in the beef because of chicken. And I mentioned Tyson, Tyson's chicken. I mean, they. We all think of chicken when we hear Tyson, and that's because, man, they've got that stuff vertically integrated. They own every portion of that system except for the one part in there where there's a little bit of risk, which is actually growing the birds. The farmers that they've contracted with don't even own the birds. [00:10:30] Speaker C: Right. [00:10:30] Speaker A: Like, Tyson supplies the birds. Tyson supplies the feed. Tyson tells them what temperature to keep it at, what light to put on them, when to feed them, when to do everything, when to process them. Like, Tyson controls all of that, except. [00:10:42] Speaker B: For they do not own the land. They do not own the barns and the infrastructure to grow those chickens and house those chickens. The farmer has mortgaged himself and his land and taken out all of the loans in order to build, to Tyson's specificity like that, you have to build them exactly like they say. So Tyson also owns the farmer. [00:11:07] Speaker C: Yeah, but. [00:11:08] Speaker A: And they own everything. But the risk. The farmer really owns all of the risk there. [00:11:13] Speaker B: Yeah, because whenever, I mean, with all this bird flu coming in, you know, if, if Tyson's chickens have to be. If, if they go in and depopulate a house, okay, those might be Tyson's chickens, but that farmer doesn't get to raise those chickens. It's not going to get paid for raising those chickens. Oh, and now if they condemn that house, that farmer's house can't grow chickens anymore. [00:11:39] Speaker C: Right. [00:11:40] Speaker B: And so, but that farmer still owes the bank every month on that barn, you know, so again, it's the risk on the farmer. Tyson's like. [00:11:49] Speaker A: So anyway, Tyson's figured out chicken. [00:11:51] Speaker B: Sorry, by the way. [00:11:53] Speaker A: So they're able to make $189 million profit in the first quarter, and that's covering up the $121 million loss in beef. So they're making their money on the chicken, and they're able to artificially keep the beef prices low. [00:12:11] Speaker B: Well, it's kind of like Walmart, right? Walmart will they got a loss leader, you Go back to the back of the store and go get a cheap jug of milk. I remember when we lived in Virginia and I would go to a specific Walmart back when I bought regular, you know, great value milk because we had so many kids and stuff. And I would go to this one Walmart in Virginia because they would run 99 cents. Now this is literally in 2017, 99 cent gallon milk. [00:12:42] Speaker C: Wow. [00:12:42] Speaker B: 99 cents. And everywhere else the milk was $2, $3, whatever. And they didn't care. It was. They took the loss because it was a massive Walmart and it didn't matter. Well, they could lose. They could lose money on the milk. [00:12:59] Speaker A: And it was. Milk's at the back of the store. [00:13:00] Speaker B: Sure. [00:13:01] Speaker A: So you have to walk past all of the other stuff to get to the milk. [00:13:04] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:05] Speaker A: So that they're not only are they getting you into the store, they're getting you all the way into the store. [00:13:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:11] Speaker B: So Tyson is essentially Cargill. Do they do chicken? [00:13:17] Speaker A: Well, so, yes. [00:13:20] Speaker C: Okay. [00:13:21] Speaker A: The short answer is yes, all four of them do chicken. [00:13:23] Speaker B: Oh, okay. So essentially, though, their chicken is the number one protein eaten in the United States. So they are using massive volume and vertically integrated chicken production and sales to hold up a very rocky beef market. [00:13:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:13:46] Speaker A: Beef prices, like cattle prices right now at the. At the market. Like when the rancher takes cattle to the market, they're high. [00:13:53] Speaker B: How high? Like what? Give. What. What were they maybe like two years ago? Ish. Ish. And what are they now? One thing for someone to understand. [00:14:03] Speaker A: Let's just talk about a baby, a baby calf. Bottle babies. You often hear of people saying, I want to get a bottle baby because you can get it cheap. And then you feed it like a bottle from the time that it's born, basically, and you can grow it out. So you're not paying much for the calf. When we first bought the land, we bought some bottle babies in order to sort of beef up our herd. That's what you did there while we were growing. And we paid about $250 for. For these bottle babies. [00:14:37] Speaker B: And we thought that was expensive. Then we thought, dad gum, $250. [00:14:41] Speaker A: Well, I remember as a kid we would pay like $25 for a bottle baby. So, you know, thinking that we were paying 250, it was like, oh, man, that seems high. But right now you're lucky if you can find a bottle baby for less than a thousand. Yeah, that's in three and a half years. [00:15:01] Speaker B: So $1,000 for a week old calf. [00:15:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:10] Speaker B: That'S the calf. So a 500 pound calf, you're close to $2,000. Whereas like when we first started farming about a thousand, it would have been about a thousand. So they've more than doubled. Yeah, more than doubled. And here's the thing. I don't think those prices are going anywhere anytime soon. They, they may, they will come back down. Things will level. They, they generally do. Well, they might, but the problem is our herd size isn't helping anything. [00:15:40] Speaker A: No, the herd size is lower. [00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah. You've got high prices on these cattle, which is really great for the ranchers. [00:15:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:48] Speaker A: So a couple of things there. The, the herd size. We talked about it in 2024 that our herd size was the lowest it had been since 1951. [00:15:56] Speaker B: Guess what? [00:15:57] Speaker A: It decreased from 24 to 25. It got smaller by another two and a half percent. So our herd size is still the lowest it's ever been since 1951. And tons of reasons why. One of them being the high price of cattle is enticing ranchers to sell their replacement heifers instead of keeping them to grow the herd. There's drought. There's like, there's other, there's other reasons. But like the, probably the main reason is selling replacement heifers. [00:16:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:31] Speaker B: The costs of production and producing beef just has, just has risen over the past few years to the point where it just feels to a lot of them that's unsustainable. And they're old enough. We've talked about that before. We've talked about that before. They're old enough that they're like, hey, it's really great. Let's get out, you know, get out while we can. [00:16:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Yep. [00:16:53] Speaker B: So they're doing it. [00:16:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it's crazy. [00:16:55] Speaker B: So the, the, so you have very low supply. [00:16:59] Speaker C: Yeah, we do. [00:17:00] Speaker A: And then you have the consumer. [00:17:03] Speaker C: Right. [00:17:03] Speaker A: The consumer is saying, beef isn't cheap, guys. Sorry. [00:17:09] Speaker C: Right. [00:17:10] Speaker B: Who wants to pay $30 a pound for a ribeye? [00:17:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:15] Speaker A: Well, so point being that the beef is at an, the price of beef is also at an all time high. [00:17:24] Speaker B: It is, it's really high right now. [00:17:27] Speaker A: In May of 2025, $8.55 a pound is the US average for to buy a pound of beef, like across all the cuts, it's $8.55 higher than it's ever been. Our assertion is that is still artificially low. [00:17:44] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. [00:17:47] Speaker A: So that's the point that we're trying to drive home by saying, why is your beef so cheap? And you're saying it's not cheap. It's higher than it's ever been. [00:17:59] Speaker B: The prices of beef are crazy. It's not cheap at all, but it's artificially low. But if you pull back the curtain on the entire industry, it is artificially kept low. [00:18:09] Speaker A: And the packers are able to do it because of chicken. [00:18:12] Speaker C: Yes. [00:18:13] Speaker A: They're making huge profits on chicken. And so, like, say, Cargill, they own Pilgrims Chicken, the other two companies. You look at them and you're like, well, they don't really. They don't really do chicken, but they do in other. Other countries, not in the United States. [00:18:34] Speaker B: So it looks like aspect to it as well. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it looks like, oh, well, they're doing, you know, they're doing only beef in the United States, but they're not doing only beef. Everywhere. Globally, they're doing chicken. [00:18:49] Speaker B: And chicken is holding them. [00:18:50] Speaker C: Right. [00:18:51] Speaker B: Holding it up there as well. [00:18:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:55] Speaker A: Wow. So go ahead. [00:18:57] Speaker B: So then, to me, eventually, something's going to give. [00:19:04] Speaker A: Well, the. [00:19:05] Speaker B: They're not. People don't like to just lose money. Not $121 million in a quarter. That's not sustainable for any corporation. [00:19:16] Speaker C: Right. [00:19:16] Speaker A: So, like we've talked about, the price of beef is going up slowly. Slowly. The consumption of beef has gone down about 2 pounds a year for the past five years. For Americans, we're eating about 2 pounds per person, less beef per year. So prices going up, consumption's going down. At some point, there is probably a tipping point at which it becomes, I can't afford beef. And now as the demand starts to drop, if it drops off, then you may see a huge market shift if it just continues to slowly decline. So what's happening now is even with only two pounds per person, there's a shift happening between what beef is purchased instead of the prime cuts that your ribeyes and T bones and tenderloins, people are buying more budget cuts. Budget cuts. You know, a rump roast and some hamburger. [00:20:24] Speaker C: Yep. [00:20:24] Speaker A: So that, you know, the. The pounds are only going down by a couple of pounds per year, but the. The beef that's being purchased is changing to your more cheaper super cuts. [00:20:36] Speaker C: Yeah. Mm. Wow. Yeah. [00:20:41] Speaker A: And so that $8.55, that's 15% higher than it was this time last year. [00:20:48] Speaker B: Really? [00:20:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Wow. [00:20:49] Speaker A: So that's the. Like when we say, why is your beef so cheap? And you say it's 15% higher than it was last year. What are you talking about, you fool? Yeah, you know. Well, it is, but it's still artificially low. Tyson lost $121 million in a quarter in Beef in beef. [00:21:13] Speaker B: I, yeah, I just can't imagine where, where this is headed. It seems to me like should be headed in, in the direction of them busting this up. Because if we could bust this up, get it back regional and stop the price controlling. So how do they control the prices? Like how do you so this. So the price of the cow is, okay, let's say the price of the steer is $2,000. And then, you know, a cat, y', all, a piece of beef on hoof changes hands multiple times before it ever even gets to the packer. So it goes from the, the cow calf operation and then it goes to the backgrounder who's going to raise them out from 500 to 700 or 800 pounds. And then they're going to sell them to the feedlot when they're ready and the feedlot's going to hold them until they are ready to go to slaughter. Then that's, it's that point, I think that it's the, the, the prices that the packers are negotiating with the feedlots that is, it is a. [00:22:27] Speaker A: Controlling the price, trying to, trying to do research for this. It's a, it's actually a very complex set of contracts that are written across all of those areas. And the big packers try to control it as much as they possibly can. And one of the ways that they do that is they write futures contracts. I will buy your cow. You know, you're ready to process cow a year from now at this price. And so they're obviously, they're always trying to do things in their favor. So the way, and they have multiple different ways of doing the contracts in order to manipulate the entire system into their favor. And because they're controlling 80%, it's not like you can just say you're a big feedlot, you can't just say, no, I don't want to do that. It's like any producer that gets a product into Walmart, now Walmart's controlling your price because you can't say, nah, I'm not going to sell it to you at that point Walmart, just like you're done. [00:23:37] Speaker B: But what the packers can do is they also not only control the price, they control the throttle on volume. That's right, what they will buy, when they will buy it and what they won't buy and when they won't buy it. And the feedlots are sitting there with however many head of cattle feeding them until a certain point. And then you can't, they can't just keep holding them and holding them. And holding them. [00:24:01] Speaker C: Yeah. And. [00:24:02] Speaker A: And then they'll, like. What they'll do is they'll charge them a penalty, like a negative if your cow's too fat when it gets to the packer. So you'll get, like, you'll get a bonus if. If you have produced a prime, you know, what's graded out as a prime cut or a prime, you know, your cuts are graded prime. [00:24:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:23] Speaker A: But if you've. If you've produced a fat, like, well, you had to hold it longer, like, for whatever reason, you know, I'm not ready. The prices aren't great. I'm just going to hold this group of cows. I'll keep feeding them. Well, now they're fat. Now the packers trying to ding you. Yeah. They ding you or penalize you. They penalize you. They give you a negative, you know, X number of dollars for fats. [00:24:47] Speaker B: So they just really have the rancher person by the. Well, you know what. Yeah, for sure. [00:24:57] Speaker A: Indirectly. Right, right. Because of the different areas that, that you said that you listed as they go through. But yeah, they. And they want to control the contracts all the way down as far as they can. [00:25:09] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Because now they're controlling the price across the board. The big packers. [00:25:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:16] Speaker A: So the ranchers we've talked about, they are. With the higher price of cattle, they are seeing a higher price on the dollar for that. You know, how much does the rancher get out of the beef dollar? It has gone up. So in 2023, it was like 39 to 40 cents per dollar. Went to the rancher in 20, 24, 25. It's like 43 to 45% or, sorry, cents per dollar go to the rancher. So it's gone up like maybe 4 or 5 cents on the, on the dollar. [00:25:57] Speaker B: But in the 1970s, I believe. Yeah, it was more like 65 to 70 cents. [00:26:05] Speaker C: Right. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Per. Per dollar. [00:26:08] Speaker A: Went to the ranch. [00:26:09] Speaker B: To the rancher. [00:26:10] Speaker C: Right. [00:26:12] Speaker B: And so there's. There's. Still. To me, there's still a lot of room. But, you know, back then, we weren't. We didn't have centralized packing houses controlling the prices like that. It was far more diversified. There were. There were slaughterhouses all over the nation. And then, of course, it was consolidate. Consolidate. Consolidate. [00:26:29] Speaker A: That's right. [00:26:30] Speaker B: And then they shut all of the. The other. The small packing houses down and got. And then now we're here. [00:26:38] Speaker A: Well, and even the 4, 3, 4 cents that have increased, we've been dealing with droughts. We've been dealing with all kinds of Natural disasters with fires, like. [00:26:48] Speaker B: So while they might be getting it. Well, I mean, what is the price of a bale of hay that they're having to. If to feed or what. What are the grain prices if they're feeding out in the lots? You know, the, the input costs have gone up with that. So it's not like they're like, they're probably, you know, the, you know, like it's 89 degrees outside, but it feels like, you know, I think there feels like it's still the same. [00:27:17] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:27:18] Speaker B: You know. Yes, they're making more money and they should. But what we would really like is for them to make more money and be able to feel like they're making more money. [00:27:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Also. [00:27:28] Speaker C: Right. [00:27:28] Speaker B: You know, and not have to have so many. So much more high costs and inputs also. [00:27:33] Speaker C: Yep, absolutely. [00:27:34] Speaker B: Ask me how, why I feel like that. [00:27:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:40] Speaker A: So one of the things to think about is how, like, why would they continue to run at a loss, the big four? Like why. Why keep doing it? [00:27:53] Speaker B: That's a great question. [00:27:54] Speaker A: And what, what I think, what we think they're, they're doing this to continuously consolidate the market. [00:28:05] Speaker C: Right. [00:28:05] Speaker A: If they can keep those prices artificially low to the point where the, the ranchers, the other producers are having to get out, then that allows them more and more control over the market. So they've gotten up to 80% of the market control at this point. The longer they can hold out, the more of that market they're going to control. Because these prices being artificially low means. [00:28:32] Speaker B: That other people cannot compete. [00:28:34] Speaker A: That 20% isn't being able to compete because the big four are able to lose money on beef. The smaller people that are just doing beef, they have to make money on beef. They can't lose money on beef like the big four can. [00:28:50] Speaker C: Right. [00:28:51] Speaker A: They're not being propped up by chicken profits. So they're able to continuously expand their, their market share more and more control to the point where it just, you know, you just get bigger and bigger and bigger. [00:29:08] Speaker B: Do you. Does anyone see a world in which. So Tyson has completely vertically integrated their chicken. [00:29:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:15] Speaker B: Except for the farmer and his land and barn that he financed. Is there, Is there a world in which. And this is. I don't know the answer. In which these four companies want to be beef vertically integrated like that. And take those, take some of the middle people out of the equation, like, is that in their, Is that in their strategy or is it a. No, that's not ever going to happen with beef. We, they just have to Continue to try to nail down within the sectors that they can. [00:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. I haven't read anything about it. It's an interesting thought experiment though that. And like, well, why wouldn't they? It's all the same. Not really because those chickens, the, they like a Tyson chicken is alive for less than eight weeks, right. You know, it's like seven weeks old a lot of times just under seven weeks old, like 47 days old when they're, when they're processed. [00:30:26] Speaker B: And it's a freaking nature, y'. [00:30:28] Speaker C: All. [00:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it really is. [00:30:30] Speaker A: And, but it works even when grain fed, you're typically like 2 years old. So like the, the difference there, I've got seven weeks versus two years. [00:30:42] Speaker B: It is got to grow it somewhere for two years. [00:30:45] Speaker A: It is different, you know, like it, it's a different animal. [00:30:51] Speaker B: You're full of them today. Yeah, it is. So, so I guess time and what it takes to actually grow that out just is, it's part of prohibitive, I guess to them to be able to take it over like that. [00:31:07] Speaker A: Maybe, you know, like, or, or maybe that's absolutely what they're wanting to do. You know, they could, they could own the animal, they could own the feed that, you know, like. And you would, you would feed on their schedule, you would do the, whatever the medications are on their schedule. You know, you would like you, I, I wouldn't rule it out, that's for certain. But I can see like we're smack dab in the middle of. We've had beef now for three and a half years and we're just now starting to sell our grass fed beef. [00:31:38] Speaker B: You know, it takes a lot, it. [00:31:40] Speaker A: Takes, there's a lot of capital input before you ever see anything out of it, any revenue coming in from beef. [00:31:48] Speaker B: So the way that the beef industry works then is it's, it makes it financially viable because the, the, the risk, the financial risk and the time is spread out over multiple different families and ranches and things like that. Because if you've got the cow calf, you know, Missouri is like in the top 10 in cow calf pair operations. So if you've got the cow calf person and they tend to this, to all the mamas, and then you've got the, the, the backgrounders or the, you know, the people who take those 500 pounders and buy a bunch of them and those stalkers and graze them for, you know, a year or whatever. And so the financial obligation and the risk is, and the time is broken up between all of these different Sectors. [00:32:43] Speaker C: That's right. [00:32:43] Speaker B: So I. Yeah. I don't know how. Well, I know how you vertically integrate it and I will tell you it's difficult because we have, we're currently trying and I don't know that it's a model that is viable. Like we're doing our own experiment and I don't know at the small scale. Yeah, but you get big. [00:33:04] Speaker C: Yeah, you gotta. [00:33:05] Speaker B: It don't work. [00:33:08] Speaker A: Really big. It might really small. It might. I think it's that, I think it's the middle size where it won't work because the majority of your beef farmers have another job. [00:33:25] Speaker B: That's true. [00:33:26] Speaker A: So where, where we're able to. Because of military retirement. Like our, our outside income that is helping support our farm. We're just like all the rest of the farmers with outside income helping to support the farm. It's just our outside income coming in doesn't require me to go to a 9 to 5 or you to go to a 9 to 5. [00:33:50] Speaker C: Right. [00:33:50] Speaker A: Where most all cattle ranchers farmers have another job. Most, it's like 80 something percent. 90% have another job. So where we're able to do the sales and the marketing and direct to consumer, have a store and an online presence and an online business and social media and all of the things that we're doing that we're able to do because we have, we have time. Your. The, you know, whatever it is 80. I forget what it is. It's like 90% of your. Of your cattle producers have another job. They don't have the time that it takes to deal with the consumer. [00:34:36] Speaker C: Right. [00:34:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point. [00:34:37] Speaker A: So you know, at the, at the really small, where you're doing a few cows a year, I think that you can sell a half or a hole to a person, you know, like that and maybe make it work. If you start trying to get into retail cuts, you can't, you can't only do one or two cows a year and think you're going to sell retail cuts like that. That doesn't work. [00:34:59] Speaker B: No, it doesn't. [00:35:00] Speaker A: Because you have to have a supply, you know, and so there's a, there's a real big. I think you could, you could probably make it work the, the experiment. [00:35:13] Speaker B: So the rancher becomes the custom grazer. [00:35:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:17] Speaker B: You have the land. We rent the land. We pay you to graze our cows. [00:35:22] Speaker C: The. [00:35:22] Speaker A: I think the experiment we're doing is at the, at the, you know, we're still really small. Micro. [00:35:29] Speaker B: Yeah, micro. [00:35:30] Speaker A: But you know, bigger than the homestead level. Maybe. Okay, so I think the experiment is at the. You know, we want to. We want to process so that our local community is supplied in beef. And that's, you know, a cup, one to two to maybe three beef per month. Right. Like, can we make that work? Is there a scale there where you can make it work and. I don't know. [00:35:59] Speaker C: No. [00:35:59] Speaker B: Well, we don't. [00:36:01] Speaker A: We're trying. [00:36:02] Speaker B: We're trying to. Yeah, it's all interesting. [00:36:06] Speaker A: But you know what. [00:36:07] Speaker B: What's that? [00:36:08] Speaker A: We've got chicken to help us prop it up. [00:36:11] Speaker B: You ain't lying. You ain't lying. It's true. It's absolutely the truth. [00:36:17] Speaker A: So our chicken, it lives for 10 weeks instead of seven, but still, 10 weeks after we get a baby bird on the farm, it goes to our USDA processor. Two weeks later, it's into our store. So at 12 weeks, three months after we get a baby chick, we have chicken for sale in the store. [00:36:39] Speaker B: That's true. [00:36:40] Speaker A: So our chicken is helping prop up our beef, just like the big four. [00:36:45] Speaker B: And the profit margin on chicken is better than the profit margin on beef. So I see what they're doing because we're doing it too, because what's the real price of beef? That's something that we don't. I don't think anyone really knows yet. I don't think we really know. [00:37:04] Speaker A: I don't know because they. [00:37:05] Speaker B: Because the mark. Because the way the packers are doing and setting the market. If we started charging the true price of beef and setting margins where they should be. I think you just have a lot of beef on hand at the moment. [00:37:19] Speaker C: Yeah, it'd be. [00:37:21] Speaker A: Man, it'd be interesting if you. If you could get behind the scenes with the. With those big guys to set their. Like, if you could go in there and even just again, as an experiment, manipulate things so that the. The. Their beef was marked up at the same markup as their chicken. [00:37:40] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:37:41] Speaker A: And then see what. See what beef prices are. That would be fun if you could get into the system. [00:37:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:50] Speaker C: People wouldn't. [00:37:51] Speaker B: People get to the point where they don't buy it. [00:37:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:53] Speaker A: But I. I don't think my. My hypothesis going into that experiment would be it's greater than $8.55. [00:38:01] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:38:02] Speaker B: I would agree with that. [00:38:03] Speaker C: If. [00:38:04] Speaker A: If the beef. If their profit margins on beef were set at the same as their profit. [00:38:09] Speaker B: Margins on chicken, so there are additional ripple effects. It's not just the ranchers that are. That are. That are affected. It's not just the feedlot. It's not just the consumer that are being affected by this conglomerate of companies, small conglomerate of companies that are controlling what's going on in this industry industry wide. Yeah, well, there's. [00:38:35] Speaker A: Since the USDA's get big or get out push in the late 1970s. Right. So since 1980, we. We've lost 40% of our ranchers. [00:38:46] Speaker B: So in our lifetime. [00:38:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:38:48] Speaker A: In less than 50 years, almost half. [00:38:51] Speaker B: Of our ranchers have got a quits. [00:38:56] Speaker A: That's right. For whatever reason, they're now, for one reason or another, they're out of business. And the ripple effects of that, because. [00:39:03] Speaker B: It wasn't being profitable, they were losing their shirts. [00:39:06] Speaker A: And they were encouraged to get out. [00:39:07] Speaker B: And they were encouraged to get out. Either get big or get out. Well, I can't get any bigger, so I guess I'm going to get out. And then they sell their cows to. [00:39:14] Speaker A: The person that is getting bigger. Maybe I don't want to take out the multimillion dollars worth of loans that it takes to actually get bigger. Okay, well, here you can buy my cows. [00:39:23] Speaker B: I mean, there for a lot of years, they weren't making any money anyway. They were probably just like, I'm not making any money. [00:39:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:29] Speaker B: You know, at all. [00:39:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:30] Speaker A: And one of the things, you know, now owning a. A small business, seeing. Seeing the local dollar and the now really understanding the ripple effect of bringing a business into the community. And like, we watch where the dollars that come into our business, we watch where that goes from a local perspective. It goes to that feed store and that feed store and that feed store and all of these local. That processor and that processor and like all of the local places that the dollar is moving around. When you lose 40% of that of those businesses, that local dollar is lost. [00:40:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Rural America literally dies because the schools, you don't need schools and you don't need that local feed store you were just talking about, like Main street. Go down some of these rural towns that were midwestern towns, huge into cattle, lots of farming and ranching, and go. Go look at some of those towns. They're just like ghost towns. [00:40:42] Speaker C: Yeah. Yep. [00:40:45] Speaker A: So definitely a ripple effect there. Another ripple effect is, and we've alluded to it already, two of these companies are not US Owned, period. [00:40:55] Speaker B: And that is scary. And I do not understand why. Why our government has allowed us to be in this situation. [00:41:02] Speaker A: So like 40%, somewhere around 40% of our beef is being controlled by companies that are not U.S. companies. [00:41:13] Speaker B: It just kind of makes me see red, I guess. [00:41:19] Speaker A: You know, I would call it A known risk. [00:41:23] Speaker C: Right. [00:41:24] Speaker A: When you're planning. In the military, you have known risks and unknown risks. Sure. You know, the known risks you try to do something about. And you know, this is a known risk and I'm not sure what's being done about it, but it does. [00:41:40] Speaker B: It breeds fragility. Well, yeah, big time. [00:41:43] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Yep. [00:41:47] Speaker A: It sure does. So. [00:41:49] Speaker B: Wow. [00:41:49] Speaker A: The solution for the person watching, the consumer, the buyer of beef. [00:41:56] Speaker B: Mm. [00:41:58] Speaker A: In, in my opinion, again, we've alluded to already, you have to go local. You can't just go, well, I'm going to buy the certified Angus because my, my friend down the road raises Angus. [00:42:12] Speaker C: Right? Yeah. [00:42:13] Speaker B: If you're buying, if you're buying beef at a big box store, you're buying big four beef. [00:42:22] Speaker A: Most likely. [00:42:22] Speaker B: Most likely. Well, 80% chance. Yeah, you know, just round numbers. 80% chance. If you buy beef at a big box store, you're buying big four beef. If you don't want to buy big four beef, go find yourself a smaller retail outlet, See if you can find out where that beef actually comes from. And buy local. Buy from a. Buy. Find a farmer or a rancher or go online and look up local rancher near me that sells beef. I mean, like, just Google it, you know, and ask them. And then another stock up, you know, fill. If you can afford to put a half of a beef in your freezer, do that. Because I don't think that prices on it is going to get any better anytime soon. [00:43:21] Speaker C: No, I don't. [00:43:22] Speaker A: It's. [00:43:23] Speaker B: Right now it's cheap, as you say it. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it is the most expensive it's been and it is artificially cheap. [00:43:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:33] Speaker A: So I, I don't think, I don't think I'm wrong in saying cheap beef. [00:43:38] Speaker B: You can also ask your, ask your grocery store person or the, your restaurant owners things, people that are actually the, the retail in the middle, somewhere between the packer and your plate. Ask that person, hey, where's this beef come from? Yeah, where did you get this? And then if you, if we understand where the beef is coming from, we can choose whether or not we want to participate in that system. Yeah, right. [00:44:07] Speaker A: That'd be a funny question to ask McDonald's, wouldn't it? [00:44:09] Speaker B: Where'd this beef come from? [00:44:11] Speaker C: You. [00:44:12] Speaker B: And they should answer with, you don't want to know. That's what they should answer. [00:44:17] Speaker A: It would be funny. [00:44:19] Speaker B: Where'd this beef come from? [00:44:26] Speaker A: Yeah, so I, I don't know. Just, just think about where you're, where you're buying your Meat. We would encourage you to obviously support local, help out your local guys, keep your dollar local. It really does matter. It goes a long ways towards your community building. Community, you know, I think what like. [00:44:48] Speaker B: And that is that, that's the answer, right? Because you sit here and you go, well what is the answer if the prices are only going to go up and the problems are only going to get greater? Well, how do we fix it? How do we make it to where beef is affordable? Because we know that the herd is small and it's going to take time to grow that herd again. When anyone starts growing it, it's going to take some time. But what would help bring the prices of those cuts of meat back under control? Would it be the deconsolidate, Bust up the monopoly, go regional and stop price fixing? Like is that the answer to the question of why is beef so jacked up? Do you know the answer behind do if you're watching this and if you know the answer because we do have a lot of people who are in or not the answer but you know, thoughts about what do you think about this particular industry, Tom? [00:46:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I would love to hear you, you guys thoughts on this. I, I, I don't know what, what I would see happening is the, if something were to happen, the big four did get kindly asked to deconsolidate and you know, it starts to spread back out. I would think that initially prices would get higher and not lower. So you asked how do prices get lower? I think I would have to ask back should they be lower? [00:46:44] Speaker B: I knew you were good, so I thought maybe they were, they're low and they shouldn't be low. [00:46:50] Speaker A: I think, I think that because everybody isn't cheap, beef isn't cheap. So I think that there is an artificial expectation regarding the price of beef and I think that probably it would get more expensive and not cheaper. [00:47:20] Speaker B: Two things that we've learned over the past four years, one, food is not cheap. [00:47:27] Speaker A: No. [00:47:28] Speaker B: Number two, nor is it easy. It is not easy and it is not cheap. [00:47:34] Speaker A: Not if you want good food. [00:47:35] Speaker C: Right. Quality food. [00:47:36] Speaker A: If you want cheap food, cheap, easy food, that's how you get to ultra processed. Everything is made from corn and soy and some monocross, some type of oil. Right. [00:47:47] Speaker B: Some type of industrial and everything in between. Every animal in between is fed that same stuff. [00:47:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:54] Speaker A: If you want cheap and easy, that's where you go. If you want good, it is not cheap. Nor is it easy. [00:48:02] Speaker C: Not at all. [00:48:02] Speaker A: So I don't know. So I would say though that your beef beef is cheap because of chicken. [00:48:11] Speaker C: Yep. [00:48:13] Speaker B: And I agree. Thank you guys for hanging out with us again today at Duster Med Podcast. And until next time, bye, y'. [00:48:19] Speaker C: All. [00:48:19] Speaker A: Bye.