Amazon’s impending takeover of Whole Foods Market isn’t the only thing weighing on grocers’ spirits this Fourth of July holiday. As Bloomberg reports, booming meat supplies have sent ground-beef prices to three-year lows, squeezing food sellers’ margins ahead of the top grilling day of the year, when 87% of US consumers are expected to barbecue.
What’s worse, the surge in production has kept in-store prices low, while wholesale costs have risen.
Here’s Bloomberg with more:
‘American beef production is expected to climb 4 percent this year to 26.292 billion pounds, the highest since 2010, the U. S. Department of Agriculture estimates. The gain comes as feed has stayed cheap for livestock producers, with corn futures falling for four straight years through 2016. Pork and chicken output will both reach records.
Higher output is helping to keep ground-beef prices low at the grocery store. Retail costs have stayed cheap even as wholesale costs climbed, signaling that consumers will likely enjoy lower bills for the next year and a half as production keeps expanding, said Chris Hurt, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Jul 4, 2017.
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