Responding to NCBA Demands, Beef Packers Sharing Profits

DENVER, CO – With retail demand for meat exploding, beef packer profits have surged. According to the independent Sterling Beef Profit Tracker, packer margins last week averaged $504, an increase of more than $320 per head in just seven days. HedgersEdge.com reported profit margins reaching a record high of $611 per head on Tuesday, a $31 per head increase over Monday. All of this comes as the live and fed cattle markets at the CME Group in Chicago have nosedived, hitting their lowest levels in ten years. Colin Woodall, CEO of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association (NCBA) sent a letter to the four major packers on Monday explaining that “all of us in the beef supply chain have to be healthy, financially, if we’re going to weather this crisis and beyond”. Tyson followed up by announcing a $5 per hundredweight increase for all cattle purchased this week. National Beef also announced that they would go back and pay $113 per hundredweight on all cattle bought last week and this week as well. “That’s two great efforts by the packers,” Woodall said, “to be responsive to our demands and to try and share some of the profit they are seeing”.