Price Spreads for Beef and Pork: Revised Series, 1949-69

To more accurately measure price spreads for beef and pork, the methods of estimating U.S. composite prices of beef and pork at the retail, wholesale, and farm levels have been updated. The revised price spreads calculated from these new composite prices are presented for the 1949-69 period, thereby providing a historical time series for these data. In addition to presenting the farm-retail, farm-wholesale, and wholesale-retail price spreads, several examples tracing both beef and pork through the marketing channel illustrate costs and gross returns associated with the marketing of livestock and meat