If you are in the meat business, you’d have to be living under a rock to not know about the current dynamics of the beef industry complex here in the U.S. The drought and high input prices for beef producers have caused a herd liquidation that has given us a robust supply of beef this past year.

If you want to know more details about why beef cattle supply is going to tighten up, see this article entitled Deja Moo by Tom Johnston in the November edition of Meatingplace.

We’ve all known for a long while that all this great affordable boxed beef we’ve enjoyed in 2022 would someday come to an end. Exactly when it will end, no one exactly knows. Perhaps first quarter or possibly early in the second quarter is when prices will surge for all the cuts from the dynamic beef carcass.

Just this week, with the Christmas holiday, slaughter plants throttled down their numbers and wow did that effect wholesale prices for beef this past week. This is just a taste of things to come in 2023.

If you want an easy way to keep up with wholesale boxed beef prices, bookmark https://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/resources/wholesale-price-update and you can subscribe to the weekly update that will get emailed to your inbox. I like this easy-to-read-and-use website because it shows the current price, price last week and price last year for beef sub-primals and grinds.

Of course, you can always go the USDA market reports too. Here’s the link to the one I use most often: https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/ams_2461.pdf

While we don’t know to the day and week when boxed beef prices will start climbing in 2023, we do know it’s coming, so now is the time to let your customers know to start planning for their future profitability and menu planning.

What’s good for beef producers with higher prices on the way for live cattle is bad news and timing for many restaurant operators. Restaurants that borrowed from the SBA during COVID have to start repaying their loans in 2023. And their food costs are forecast to continue to battle their bottom line. Burgers and many beef cuts have provided a way for operators to make it back from the dark days of COVID restrictions, but I fear that coming beef prices are really going to challenge many operators.

So, what can a restaurant operator do to stay profitable and continue to offer tasty beef on the menu? Of course, they can raise prices, and most will have to, but there are other options.

For starters, it’s winter and it’s crazy cold in most places, so this is the time to make some money serving up beef shanks with braised ossobuco. Chuck pot roasts are comfort food for many but surprisingly not on many restaurant menus. Beef stew with barley is an easy way to make some profit on a crowd pleaser. I am disappointed very often when I go to a restaurant, and I ask if the soup is made in house. Much of the time it arrives in a bag in a box through the back door. Not to disparage food processors that make soup in bags for the industry, but homemade soup just tastes better when made right and so much more profitable for the operator, in my experience.

I am advising many of my customers to plan for smaller beef portions but add something else to the plate that offers value to the customers — local produce, when in season, or add a cup of vegetable soup to the burger as a side option. I am also selling more blended items like beef and mushroom burgers, and I think we’ll see the whole flexitarian idea come to fruition in the coming year, driven by the need to contain food costs. The flexitarian option is nothing new, but still undermarketed and developed. For example, a flexitarian would mix 50% ground beef with cooked black beans or with pinto bean flour or plant-based dry mix that lower overall portion costs and still taste delicious when cooked up.

I think restaurant operators are going to have to continue to be creative in 2023 to stay profitable. What other ideas do you have to offer your customers ways of staying profitable with beef in 2023? Any suggestions for under-utilized beef cuts?

Beef prices in 2023 – how high will they go?

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