Pork market nosedive
Maxwell Foods , the number 11 largest pork producer in the us announced today they will cease operations by June 2021 they employee about 150 contract growers in my area and have another thousand or so employees o their company owned farms . Going to be a major economic hit here .
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Pork is my major food group.Pork prices are up here, double and triple pre-Covid prices.
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Company claims covid related issues as to reason for closure . I suspect the real reason is the processor, Smithfield Foods is squeezing them out . Maxwell has to contract with Smithfield for processing . Currently epa and environmental regulations make it almost impossible to obtain permits for a new processing plant The Smithfield sale to the China should have been stopped due to monopoly concerns but Obama admin let it slide
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I can buy a pork roast for .99cents a pound? 0 -
I believe that much of the pork Smithfield sells in the US comes from processing plants in Mexico. Low wages, no permits required for ponds full of liquified pig poo, no government complaints about runoff, compliant work force.Neal
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Smithfield was bought by China a while back.....0 -
Cling2myguns said:Smithfield was bought by China a while back.....
Ah, Sooooo3 -
JimmyJack said:I can buy a pork roast for .99cents a pound?
I wish bacon prices were lower likre a pork roast or shoulder.0 -
Looks like somebody's gonna get porked..... 0 -
Flying Clay Disk said:Why the hell are prices so down then?I can't give away a steer right now! And I can't get one in for processing for months (maybe part of the reason).
Big bottleneck in the meatpacking sector. A lot of the big plants are not running at 100%
I took two steers in in July after being on a three month wait list. I asked when his next opening was since I have a few more to feed out and his answer was a year. Called every other butcher around and got the same response.
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All the small custom butchers around here have stopped taking bookings until at least the first of the year huge backlog of orders .
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Amazingly, this sounds suspiciously like a door opening for opportunities to reacquire our local butchers again. Many of us have railed against the huge commercial packers for too many years so this seems like the timing has potential. We butchered for ourselves on the farms but as I moved away from the rural settings, local butchers filled the gap nicely. Maybe we should consider this as a timely endeavor?
Best.9 -
about 40 years ago i took a beef in to be processed after hand feeding it special to be the best....got back a wad of gristle and fat and some SOB got my best.....never did that again ... just bought off the store shelves ever since and have done OK 0 -
nononsense said:Amazingly, this sounds suspiciously like a door opening for opportunities to reacquire our local butchers again. Many of us have railed against the huge commercial packers for too many years so this seems like the timing has potential. We butchered for ourselves on the farms but as I moved away from the rural settings, local butchers filled the gap nicely. Maybe we should consider this as a timely endeavor?
Best.
This is a bubble. Once it pops the demand will leave.0 -
Living in a pork producing state, prices are at an all time low. Same with poultry. Eggs $3.69 per box of 60, leg quarters 10 lbs $2.90, pork loin & ribs $.94-99, beef off scale high. 0 -
I'll concede that I never have butchered a beef but I processed many hogs hoisting them up in a tree in my backyard. If I can butcher a 300 to 350 pound hog by myself and end up with the hog processed and in the freezer in the same afternoon it can't be to hard. Granted I was young, as in my 30s early 40s but I could do it. I already had a big freezer so all I needed was a roll of the white freezer paper. Ordered it in at a local Ma and Pa hardware and I was in business.
Since I left that life behind over 30 years ago I am somewhat confused as to why there is so much problem getting a hog or beef processed. Are there some type of government regulations now that I don't know about?? I know if I was physically able to do it now I know I still could do it. I wish I had a place where I could butcher a hog. I would love to teach my son. One of those skills that could possibly be important to know in the future.0 -
one limiting factor is the need to have a usda inspector on site during the processing . Not enough inspectors to fill all the vacancies . Slows things down . Throw in the epa regulation and the local health Dept regs and it become a nightmare real quick to try to set up s business
for those of us who are adept at butchering and processing our own deer we could do a cow . Tools and equipment just needs to be scaled up somewhat
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Is it still OK to process your own hog?? As in my hog, my property, my freezer??? 0 -
I doubt if butchers will ever really come back, butchering beef or hog is an art into it self. A cow is a big animal, you have to have the equipment to move it around and process it properly, even after you have cut it in half your still maybe talking 500 pounds.
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pulsarnc says:
for those of us who are adept at butchering and processing our own deer we could do a cow . Tools and equipment just needs to be scaled up somewhat
Right: but some people are just lazy.
I know several deer hunters that take their deer to be processed. Waste of money and time and I think most generally they do not even get the same animals meat that they took to the processor and some of the meat is contaminated with hair and bloodshot meat.
I've butchered lots of animals, even big animals. Just get er dun.
You can even butcher a large animal on the ground, don't have to be hanging up in the air.
But again now days if peoples electric can opener loses power or breaks they will starve to death.They also think the meat growed in the can.
If you want to see how weak minded people are and see something funny, go into a wal-mart and ask where the eggs are, then ask a employee where the rooster eggs are located and ask them to help you find them. I've seen them go look then go ask others. I then sneak off while they are looking.0 -
Pretty sure a butcher can process your animal with out a USDA inspection. Now if it goes on the market after processing then it must be inspected 0 -
A good steer will dress out at 65%. Meaning a 1,000 lb. steer will have a hanging weight of 650 lbs. or 325 lbs. a half. What most people don't know is that a 1,000 lb. steer if boned out will only yield somewhere in the 350 lb. range or less of actual meat. This is 50 year old info from an Ag class I had around 1966. I remember it well because it surprised me. I thought that when they said a dressing % of 65% meant 650 lbs of meat. Shows how little I knew back then. In all honesty not much has changed. 
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Haven't seen pork butt for .99 cents since last year. Typically they're $1.49 (on "sale") or $1.99 a pound.
As for obama "allowing" the sale what does he care he's a Muslim.
bustedknee - As for the way you use "Ah, Sooooo" is racist and wrong race at that.
I blame epa/fda and big butcher. They're basically in cahoots.
There are how to butcher hogs in your backyard by guys on youtube like stoney ridge farms, Justin Rhode and others. It's a big job. I could do a weaner (as I like to call "personal size" at one time in my life I could've ate one over the weekend) to something under 200 pounds. My issue is freezer space.
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yoshmyster said:,,,,bustedknee - As for the way you use "Ah, Sooooo" is racist and wrong race at that....
Guilty as charged. I thought, "Ah, so" was a Chinese term?I worked hard my entire life to be non-prejudiced and non-racist. But over the last couple of years a select few have undone all my hard work. Orrrrrrr, maybe being a grumpy old man with too many aches and pains, too little sleep and way too much whiskey has something to do with my attitude. I laugh hardily.But. anyone that messes with my pork supply is going to be called names by me!0 -
dreher said:I'll concede that I never have butchered a beef but I processed many hogs hoisting them up in a tree in my backyard. If I can butcher a 300 to 350 pound hog by myself and end up with the hog processed and in the freezer in the same afternoon it can't be to hard. Granted I was young, as in my 30s early 40s but I could do it. I already had a big freezer so all I needed was a roll of the white freezer paper. Ordered it in at a local Ma and Pa hardware and I was in business.
Since I left that life behind over 30 years ago I am somewhat confused as to why there is so much problem getting a hog or beef processed. Are there some type of government regulations now that I don't know about?? I know if I was physically able to do it now I know I still could do it. I wish I had a place where I could butcher a hog. I would love to teach my son. One of those skills that could possibly be important to know in the future.
Big issue with beef is you want to hang the carcass in a refrigerated area for 2-3 weeks before you slice and package.When the shortages hit in the store everyone and their brother started looking for local farmers to sell them a side. That increase has overwhelmed the local custom processors creating this backlog. I personally have more people wanting to buy sides than I can supply, even if I could there is no place to get them processed.
My butcher does not want to expand is facility because this is just a short term spike and should be back to normal within a year. I agree with him.
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- I don’t mean this to be callous-
But how do I make money on the current situation?
Is there an investment to be made?
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Warbirds said:
- I don’t mean this to be callous-
But how do I make money on the current situation?
Is there an investment to be made?
Drop a couple million on a new small packing plant, book orders out for the next year and hope you can sell the business before this "pandemic" ends.0 -
Seems to me our local meat processors have always been pretty well booked up for a long time, perhaps due to the abundance of corn fed deer. 0 -
Wish i had been older when I participated in butchering hogs out in Spotsylvania VA as a young lad. I don't remember enough to do it without a refresher course LOL 0 -
Mogley, if you can do a deer you can do a hog. I know to do a hog "correctly" you scrape the hide and do cracklings. I always just skinned them. Much easier. Once you have them hung, gutted, skinned and split down the center through the spine, breaking them down further is pretty much the same doing a hog or deer. 0 -
bustedknee - With the green font no where to be found it's hard to bust folk's chops. Just funning at you.
With AG department yielding to the granola munchers about humane "free ranging" chicken for egg production meat will be going up.
Having a big and deep enough scalding tank is one of the harder thing to have to do a big hog. Most folks around there for wild pig they just skin them. Figure they're less than 100 pounds? No Hogzillas in these woods. Hell most'll just take the legs and call it a day.
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