scmn | centralmnangus - 9/28/2025 15:22 You guys sound lazy…. Sure right now you’re probably right but you are a fool to think these prices are sticking around. Just looking to keep the net profit when cattle do turn
Selling retail cuts gets worse when fat cattle price drop. Take a cull cow example, when culls were $40cwt live that is $560 for a 1400# cull that will hang at 770 and make 425# of burger. With $1000 processing you need $3.67/lb burge to break even vs selling at the sales barn. Heck take the $1000 processing over 425# of burger and that is 2.35/lb which means a downer cow with $0 value costs 2.35/lb for burger and a lot of guys did that and sold the burger for $2.00/lb. You lose money selling burger beef when beef is cheap, as beef prices rise it becomes less of a loss.
You can also run the numbers with fats. When fats were $1.40 hanging or $90cwt live an 800# carcass will yield approx 500# BRC; with $1000 processing and $1120 for the carcass you have $2120/500BC or $4.24/lb BRC. Sell your burger for 2.50 and you need 5.98/lb for steaks and roasts which will be the same price as the meat counter at the grocery store or butcher. Now you have costs to get the meat, run a freezer, and the biggest cost is your retail time. Say you sell 500# 10# at a time and the average transaction take 10 minutes from the time the customer arrives, picks out their meat, pays you, and leaves so you can get back to what you were doing; it works out to a minute/lb. Figure you spend at least an hour or two to run to butcher, pickup beef, and bring home and put in freezer and organize. To sell an 800# carcase by reatil cut you will have close to 10hrs invested before fielding calls plus another $20-40 in mileage. Say you want $10/hr for your time you need to make an extra $125/hd retail to break even.
Now run you numbers with your retail paying the same price as your customers you sell quarters and halves to. When packer is at 1.40 and we sell quarters at 2.25/lb. Using the same 800# carcase and $1000 processing (processor does not charge less as beef prices drop) and you have $5.60/lb BRC; figure 1/4 burger at 2.50/lb and you need to 8.70/lb steak/roast, now add your 0.25/lb for retail cost and you are at $2.50lb burger, and $8.95/lb for steaks and roasts. Run the numbers with $30/hr for retail, add in amortizing the freezer, possibley trailer and truck for farmers markets, your electric costs, time spent making arrangements to meet with customers, and shrink/losses pretty soon you realize the retail side is not all profit like you once thought it was. If you are honest with your books and priced competetively in the market you can make a lot more money selling quarters and halves vs selling retail cuts, especially in a down cattle market. We did 1-2 retail beef per year to allow customers to buy beef from us and most all of those customers migrated to buying quarters and halves so we view the retail beef as marketing for the freezer beef. The trouble we have is had we priced it to make $30/hr for my time selling the retail beef we would never sell any.
In summary, I would not call a guy saying it is far easier and often more profitable to send a couple bills and cash a couple checks 'lazy' rather I would say he is a 'wise' businessman to eliminate the loss leaders.
Edited by MiradaAcres 9/29/2025 11:03
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Selling retail freezer beef
