Even though beef prices have risen to historic
highs, Americans want more, says livestock economist Len Steiner.
Speaking to a conference at Charleston, South
Carolina, he said Americans are embracing research that indicates animal fat “may
not be the nutritional bogeyman it’s been made out to be for 50 years . . .”
Meatingplace Magazine, reporting on his speech to the North
American Meat Association Outlook Conference, said beef prices will end this
year up by 32.4 per cent over last year and continue rising by another 12.5 per
cent next year.
Lower feed costs will prompt increased pork and
poultry production, so he says pork prices will peak up by 20.3 per cent by the
end of this year, then decline by 15.4 per cent next year.
Boneless, skinless
chicken breasts will end this year up by 5.4 per cent, then decline by 8.3 per
cent next year, Steiner said.
He said beef prices have been “markedly higher
than their calculations indicated they should be, even taking into
consideration the tight supply situation domestically.
“The hidden factor, he said, seemed to be a
shift in the demand curve: U.S. consumers are demanding their beef, even as
higher prices normally would have dampened sales and consumption,” Meatingplace
Magazine reports.
He says consumer demand has increased since
media gave prominent coverage to a report released this March that questioned
the longstanding link between saturated fat and heart disease, then in April
came the release of the book “The
Big, Fat Surprise: Why butter, meat and cheese belong in a healthy diet.”
“A lot of what’s been passed on by the food
nutritionists for the last 40, 50 years is simply wrong,” Steiner said.
“We have reason to believe that [a demand curve
shift] is a big part of what’s occurred this year,” he said. “We can’t get to
the prices we’ve paid for beef and pork this year with the old demand curve.”
