🥩 Where’s the beef, really? 🐄

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What travels faster than light? Words. 

For example, let’s take the word stringere in Latin, which means to draw tight. When it reached Old French, it became "destresse," meaning hardship or constraint, and eventually it changed into "distress" by the time it came to Middle English. By the 15th century, physicists borrowed only the “stress” to describe the internal force exerted on a material body. Five hundred years later, in the 1930s, the word "stress" was assimilated into psychology to describe the strain within the human mind.

Cut to the present, stress, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, causes nearly 120,000 deaths in the United States each year, and the workplace is where it resides, mostly.

But now Americans are encountering it in the most unexpected of places — grocery stores. 

A recent poll by the Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that nearly 90% of Americans feel stressed about grocery prices. 

And they are right to feel so. 

According to the Consumer Price Index, U.S. grocery prices have risen 3.1% over the past 12 months — and beef is leading the surge. 

Retail prices for beef mince have jumped 12.9% in the past year, while beef steaks are up an even steeper 16.6%. A pound of ground beef cost $6.32 in September, an 11% from a year earlier and the highest price it has ever been.

So what’s the beef with beef?

In this issue of CrossDock, we break down the reasons behind rising beef prices — how tariffs and trade policies are exacerbating the surge — and, finally, whether it will ease anytime soon or not at all.

American writer Mark Twain wrote, “A drought is only an extended conversation between a man and the sun.” Perhaps that conversation grew too long — and too heated — in 2022. 

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, nearly 82% of the United States experienced abnormally dry or drought conditions that year — the highest in more than two decades.

The most brutally hit were the nation’s beef-producing heartlands — Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma — states that together account for more than one-third of America’s beef cattle inventory.

But what does drought have to do with this story? 

Pastures are where most of America’s beef cattle graze. When pastures are green, it’s cheap and easy to raise healthy herds. But when drought strikes, the grass dies, water runs out, and ranchers must import hay and feed. This translates to higher input costs, and ranchers end up spending more on feed, water, and transport.

It’s also important to note that ranchers work with minimal profit margins. So when drought drives up feed and transport costs, those thin profits disappear fast — forcing many ranchers to sell their cattle early. 

And that’s exactly what had happened, and worse.

Ranchers also sent breeding cows — not just heifers and calves — to feedlots or auction. These cows were meant to produce future generations of calves, but selling them off to cut costs has weakened the foundation of the beef supply chain. 

To better understand this, let’s break it down with numbers 

In 2022, U.S. beef production rose to nearly 28.3 billion pounds, about 1% higher than the year before. As we mentioned, this increase occurred because many ranchers sold more cattle early for slaughter, which briefly boosted the supply but also potentially reduced herd sizes for the following years. 

The results were immediate.

In 2023, U.S. beef production fell to 27 billion pounds, nearly 5% drop from 2022.

However, this spike and fall in production was just a short-term wound in a long-term disease — the steady decline of America’s cattle inventory.

Like any product in a market economy, beef goes through its own ups and downs.

This is how the cattle cycle typically works: When prices are high and feed is cheap, ranchers expand their herds. When costs rise or drought hits, they cut back. This cycle usually runs about 10 years, marking waves of expansion and contraction in the nation’s beef herd.

But this time, the downswing has gone far beyond the norm. The U.S. is now in year 12 of the contraction phase — the longest in modern history. Years of recurring drought, high feed prices, and shrinking profit margins have kept ranchers from rebuilding.  

According to the Prices Paid Index, which tracks the amount ranchers spend on essential production inputs using 2011 as the base year (2011 = 100), costs have increased sharply over the past decade. The average feed price index in 2024 stood at 116.4, meaning feed costs are 16.4% higher than in 2011.

All of this is reflected in the beef inventory numbers, which have declined to historic lows. 

The demand for red meat is also not helping either.

Americans remain among the world’s biggest beef eaters, consuming about 57 to 60 pounds per person each year. The growing obsession with high-protein diets has kept beef firmly on dinner plates. Even with record prices, demand has barely slowed, adding more pressure to an already strained supply.

It’s simple economics: when demand stays high and supply drops, prices have only one way to go — up.

Since February 2020, retail prices for steaks have increased by 54%, while those for ground beef have risen by 51%. Even at the wholesale level, prices have followed the same trajectory. Wholesale beef prices, which have been surging in recent years, have risen by 16% in 2025.

Interestingly, the current surge in beef prices is about more than just supply and demand.

Enter: Trade, tariffs, and flesh-eating screwworm.

Despite being one of the world’s largest beef exporters, the U.S. imported approximately 4.6 billion pounds of beef in 2025 — a 24% increase from 2023, making it the second-largest beef importer globally after China.

But why does the United States do this? 

That’s because the US produces plenty of high-quality beef — the kind used for steaks, roasts, and other premium cuts.

However, it depends on imports of lean beef from countries like Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Mexico to meet demand for ground beef and processed products such as burgers, tacos, and canned meats.

This is where Brazil comes in. 

As domestic production declined in recent years, the United States has increasingly turned to Brazil — the world’s largest beef producer and exporter — to help fill the supply gap. 

In January 2025, Brazil shipped a record 197 million pounds of beef to the United States — the highest single-month total from any country in more than three decades. In fact, Brazil shipped about 571 million pounds of beef to the U.S. in the first seven months of 2025 — nearly double the volume sent during the same period last year, according to USDA data.

To put that in perspective, Brazil has increased its beef exports to the U.S. 26-fold since January 2020, when it shipped just 7 million pounds.

But it’s all changing because of tariffs.

The one factor that made Brazilian beef attractive to the American market was its price. But that advantage vanished in July, when President Trump imposed one of the highest tariffs, bringing the total tariff on Brazilian beef imports to nearly 76%.

It’s not just Brazil; Australia, another major beef supplier to the U.S., faces a 10% baseline tariff on its beef exports. 

This means importers are now paying extra for these meats — and that added cost is eventually passed down the supply chain to wholesalers, retailers, and finally to consumers, showing up as higher prices at the grocery store.

The situation worsened further when the U.S. stopped importing beef and cattle from Mexico.  

High beef prices aren’t just squeezing consumers — they’re punishing the industry’s biggest players.

For example, JBS, the world’s biggest meat packer that recently listed itself on the NYSE, reported in its Q2 results that the deepening US cattle shortage has blown a hole in its North American beef business, with the division posting a $293 million loss — an 11-fold deterioration from last year. 

The story is similar for Tyson Foods. In its Q4 earnings report, Tyson Foods disclosed that beef volumes decreased 8.4% in the quarter and 1.9% for the full year, with the company projecting an adjusted operating loss of $400–$600 million in the year ahead.

Cargill’s beef margins are also under pressure, and the company just posted its lowest revenue in four years — $154 billion for fiscal 2025.

So what’s the U.S. government doing about it? Let’s break it down. 

As beef prices hit record highs, the administration has rolled out an emergency fix: increase beef imports from Argentina to boost supply and reduce grocery costs.

Argentina currently accounts for just over 2% of U.S. beef imports, and according to existing rules, Argentina could ship up to 20,000 metric tons of beef annually to the U.S. at a reduced tariff, but anything beyond that will face a 26.4% duty. However, in October, the White House proposed quadrupling that quota to 80,000 metric tons.

However, ranchers are not happy about it.

“This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” National Cattlemen’s Beef Association CEO Colin Woodall said in a statement. 

Tariffs may have distorted supply and prices — but the market power wielded by the industry’s biggest players has done just as much damage. In fact, that’s precisely what the President of the United States believes, too.

In November, President Trump took to Truth Social to denounce what he described as the “corrupt monopoly” of the Big Four meatpackers — Tyson Foods, JBS USA, Cargill, and National Beef Packing — accusing them of fixing prices and exploiting consumers..

Just after the announcement, shares of JBS fell as much as 6.2%, while Tyson Foods dropped about 2%.

So, what’s the power they wield over the US beef industry?

Together, these four firms control nearly 85% of the U.S. beef processing market — up from just 36% in 1980. And according to White House, this consolidation has given a handful of companies the power to decide both what American ranchers earn and what consumers pay at the grocery store.

In fact, the issue isn’t new. 

President Trump’s first term initiated an investigation into the major meatpackers for market manipulation. His successor, President Biden, also aimed at the industry, calling out “corporate profiteering” by packers in a State of the Union address.

Ranchers have also long complained that the Big Four meatpackers — Tyson Foods, JBS USA, Cargill, and National Beef Packing — hold undue power over both sides of the market. They argue that retail beef prices have risen steadily over the past decade, even as the prices paid to cattle producers have fallen, with middlemen like slaughterhouses capturing a larger share of the profits.

The USDA’s Economic Research Service noted in early 2024 that big meatpackers have gained growing “market power” — meaning they can influence prices more easily. As plants ran at full capacity, packers stopped competing aggressively to buy cattle, which allowed them to pay ranchers less while charging more for beef. The result: wider profit margins for packers, thinner ones for ranchers

Over the years, these companies have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle private lawsuits accusing them of price-fixing. 

Earlier this year, JBS — the world’s largest meat processor — agreed to pay $83.5 million to settle antitrust claims that it conspired with other meat-packing companies to curb U.S. beef supply and artificially inflate prices. 

Even recently, in October 2025, Tyson Foods and Cargill agreed to pay a combined $87.5 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit alleging they conspired to inflate U.S. beef prices by restricting supply. The case, filed in Minnesota, covers more than 36 million consumers across 26 states. 

With the beef industry simmering in a supply-demand stew, seasoned with tariffs and a fresh Department of Justice investigation, the most important questions now are: will prices finally come down — and will America’s beef supply recover anytime soon?

Sadly, if there’s any relief, it is not coming anytime soon. 

According to the USDA, U.S. beef production in 2025 is projected to decrease about 4% from 2024, with a further 2% decline expected in 2026. 

In addition to this, there’s not a lot of incentive for ranchers to rebuild herds. High feed and fuel costs, limited pasture recovery after years of drought, and uncertain market conditions have made expansion a risky bet for ranchers.

Let’s say if ranchers even start rebuilding their herds now, it would take at least 3 to 5 years for the U.S. beef supply to meaningfully recover, according to experts. 

Experts say that high beef prices will soon start spilling from grocery aisles to restaurant menus. Major chains, including Burger King, Chipotle, Shake Shack, and Darden Restaurants, have all reported that record-high beef costs are eroding their profits. In fact, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski has warned that persistently high beef costs are continuing to strain the restaurant industry. 

Looks like words aren’t the only things moving at light speed — beef prices have joined the race. 

This newsletter was written by Shyam Gowtham