Visited my local grocery store today, Crest Foods. Its a small chain of 4 or 5 stores in OKC. But very popular, nice clean stores that are price competitive with WalMart.
For the first time since March , the meat dept was well stocked. From seafood, to poultry, to packaged meats, to the butcher counter .... looked the " old days " .
But the prices ............ wow. I was paying $12 a pound for CAB choice ribeye, its now $20 a pound.
CAB choice packer cut brisket at $8 a pound, the brisket I looked at was a little over $135 .
I knew these price increases were coming, but I still got sticker shock when I saw them And this is probably the new normal, especially if I start buying from local cattle producers.
There are four meat processors who are 80% of that market. That's not a good thing, this virus has exposed the shortcomings. But they can do that function cheaper due to economy of scale.
The agricultural commodity cycle is usually pretty short. Producers can bring more product to market fairly quickly. Whether this processing bottleneck will continue to keep prices high, will determine if this really is the new normal.