Meatpackers' Costs and Spreads for Beef

Excerpts from the report: How much of the consumer price for Choice beef was paid for meatpackers services? How were costs of these services allocated among labor, packaging materials, grading services, royalties, buying and selling, and operating over-head? And how stable was the packers' spread during the recent decline in prices for fat cattle? A recent survey of meatpacker costs in commercial-scale fresh beef operations provides some information. Reporting packers were located in the eastern and western Cornbelt and in the Southwest and Southeast. Records used in the analysis were from packers slaughtering mostly steers and heifers