News

The supply of cattle is at its lowest since the 1950s.

Mike Belleme for The New York Times

Tom Winter started his hamburger food truck in Missoula, Mont., almost two years ago, focused on selling locally produced food to local people at a price they could afford.

As the business — Gary’s Local Burgers — expanded to three locations, Mr. Winter kept the price of his burgers steady, at $6, a number he posted on huge signs.

But last month he printed new signs with a new figure: $6.95.

Ground beef was at its highest average price on record in May at $5.98 a pound, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That cost was 16.2 percent higher than 12 months earlier. Other cuts of beef, including sirloin steaks and chuck roast, also reached record highs in the first half of 2025.

Even though he’s buying beef and selling hamburgers locally, Mr. Winter could not escape a market that has become more expensive to operate in. Prices are up because the number of cattle available for beef is at its lowest level since the 1950s.

The number of beef cattle in the United States is down to 27.9 million, a 13 percent decline since 2019, and the overall cattle inventory is the lowest it has been since 1952, according to the Agriculture Department. Consumer demand has remained steady in recent years.

“I pledged personally that we would keep them at $6, and I was forced to go back on my pledge and increase it by 95 cents,” Mr. Winter said of his burgers, adding, “We just did not understand that prices would do this.”

Most ranchers run small businesses and do not have the capital for large investments or to weather fluctuations in price. The average beef herd consists of 47 cattle, according to 2022 Agriculture Department data. Large cattle farms — with 100 or more bovines — make up 10.5 percent of all beef operations.

Smaller herds are the result of a decade-long cattle cycle that includes drought, processor closings and shifting consumer preferences.

Ranchers reported strong profits in 2014, and expanded their herds over the next five to six years, said Ted Schroeder, an agricultural economics professor at Kansas State University.

But with more supply, the price that ranchers received for cattle fell, just as a drought began across the Western United States. With less grass for their cattle to graze on, ranchers had to buy more feed for their herds to subsist on, raising their costs. As the drought persisted, many ranchers decided to sell some cattle and downsize their herd.

Meatpacking plant closings meant fewer processors needed cattle, depressing the price that ranchers received. Pandemic disruptions in 2020 had slowed down meat processing operations, and raised costs for the entire industry.

Now, ranchers are beginning to rebuild their herds to take advantage of the high prices. But it is a slow process — it takes two to three years to raise a calf to slaughter — so beef prices are likely to remain costly for the foreseeable future. The Agriculture Department estimates that the price for cattle will remain high into 2026, with retail beef prices remaining elevated for several years.

Businesses that buy large quantities of beef are responding in a number of ways. McDonald’s, Sysco and other companies and rancher groups have sued big meat processors, arguing they have colluded to drive up prices. Meat processors have denied the claims, but settled some suits for tens of millions of dollars, without admitting wrongdoing.

Grocers like Costco and Walmart are becoming more involved in the entire chain of meat production. Walmart has invested in a Nebraska slaughterhouse, and on Monday opened its first owned and operated meat packaging facility in Olathe, Kan. A Walmart spokeswoman said the new facility would help ensure a consistent supply of beef to its stores.

Still, what is bad for consumers at store checkout counters is good for cattle ranchers, with some thriving after years of treading water. “Lately, it has been really positive for the livestock,” said Blake Albers, founder of Albers Craft Meats in Norfolk, Neb.

The Albers family owns a huge cattle feeding operation — the end of the line for cattle — and operates a small facility that flavors, cuts and packages beef, which it sells at its storefront and online. Mr. Albers said his store was still seeing a steady stream of customers, but had made some changes to retain customers’ business despite rising costs.

Some patrons want smaller portion sizes to save money, he said, adding that it is difficult to provide a smaller steak that is still thick and attractive. The butcher shop has increased the size of some cuts, such as rib-eye, so buyers can portion it to their desired size at home for multiple meals.

Mr. Albers said he was also selling 10 pounds of individually packaged, high-quality meat at a discount, figuring he can accept a lower margin on larger orders. And if a customer buys a lot of steak, he’ll throw in some ground beef at a lower price.

“You need to be in the sevens on premium ground beef, but we can go to $5.09 and $5.99 if we bundle it with the animal,” he said.

While beef prices are up, consumer income has risen slightly, meaning some people can absorb higher burger costs.

But not everybody can, and that keeps Mr. Winter, the owner of Gary's Local Burger, up at night. His prices were at parity with McDonald’s, he said, adding that in a city where the cost of living is rising, he has been happy to see residents eating Montana beef from his trucks.

That’s why it was tough to raise prices. “Many of my staff kind of mocked me, saying, ‘It is 95 cents, dude, who cares?’” he said. “But it was not a direction I wanted to go.”

Kevin Draper is a business correspondent covering the agriculture industry. He can be reached at kevin.draper@nytimes.com or kevin.draper@protonmail.com.

The strategy behind Albers' Prepped Protein launch aims to build brand loyalty across different demographics.

Nebraska-based Albers Craft Meats expands its direct-to-consumer and brick-and-mortar offerings with its heat-and-serve Prepped Protein lineup, meeting the needs of health-conscious and busy consumers who prioritize local, ethically-sourced meat, explained Blake Albers, founder of Albers Craft Meats.

Prepped Proteins are available in seasoned, ready-to-eat beef, pork and chicken, simplifying meal prep, explained Albers. The lineup features pre-seasoned, cooked meats in 20-pre-packaged sizes in options like lemon pepper chicken, herb rubbed chicken, fiesta chicken and pulled pork, among others.

Developing a value-add product to the lineup of bulk craft meats

The development of Prepped Proteins was inspired by the founder’s personal journey towards healthier eating and convenience during a busy time of the company building its USDA-approved processing plant, Albers explained.

“We didn’t go into this intentionally when we were building this plant, saying we’re going to make this prepped protein. It kind of came as we were getting into construction, we were talking about different things we could make and add value,” he elaborated.

Albers and his family were the first to try the convenience of Prepped Proteins samples and learned that “we used it a ton,” he said.

The Prepped Protein launch was also a strategic marketing tool for the company as a way for consumers to discover the brand and its other offerings, like bulk craft burgers, premium ribeye steaks and chuck roasts, among others.

“This is kind of a separate product line, but if they get familiar doing business with us, they might find out they like buying our cases of sirloin steaks or burgers. So, it is kind of twofold. The origin was it was a product we thought we would use and then the more we dove into it, we just thought it really fit our long-term goals of the business,” Albers explained.

In 2022, Tyson Foods invested heavily into its ready-to-eat meat business with nine new facilities to meet the growing demand for convenience and healthy protein options. The company predicted an estimated 10–12% return on margins for several of its brands, including Jimmy Dean, Hillshire and Tyson’s Ballpark, among others.

Controlling the supply chain for quality

In addition to the Prepped Proteins, Albers Craft Meats processes its own brand and small family ranch-to-table beef brands “that are trying to scale up a little bit,” he explained.

Currently, the company works with four beef businesses with a goal of working with up to 10 in the future, Albers said.

“We are trying to keep it kind of small and actually integrate with those businesses really well and help them build their sales channels alongside ours,” he explained.

The company and its customers source its beef from “small batches of livestock” where Albers maintains control over the entire supply chain, from livestock to processing, ensuring high-quality beef products," he added.

Last year, the Biden-Harris Administration invested an additional $110 million for a total of over $700 million in 48 states and Puerto Rico to boost independent meat processors' capacity. The funding aimed to lower food costs by increasing competition in the meat industry and strengthening a supply chain that faced significant disruptions across the four major packers in the meat industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With a brick-and-mortar butcher shop and DTC presence, Albers Craft Meats is positioning itself within the growing prepared foods and high-protein product categories, Albers explained.

While Albers Craft Meats is primarily focused on DTC and local retail, the company is also exploring potential partnerships with distributors for grab-and-go options in retailers' cold cases.

Back in 1928, Herb Albers Sr. started farming in the northeastern corner of Nebraska, six miles from the community of Wisner. Soon thereafter, he built livestock pens and began grain-finishing cattle. Nearly 100 years later Blake Albers, representing the fifth generation of the family, is in the midst of bringing many of those animals and those of a few other livestock producers to market through a combination of wholesaling, co-packing and retail creativity.

Blake, at 34 years of age, handles the marketing and sales for Albers Craft Meats. The meat packing and retailing aspect of the enterprise is now located in nearby Norfolk, Neb. The feedlot in Wisner has a capacity of 20,000 head.

“Two years ago, our family signed a purchase agreement for a 24,000 square-foot building that we were able to renovate into what you might call a ‘cut-and-wrap facility with a smokehouse,’” he jokes. “It was a blank slate of a former beer distribution warehouse that we converted into a 3,500-square-foot area for retail sales and offices, another 2,400 square-foot area for meat cutting, a packaging room, separate RTE room and a cooling area of 4,500 square feet. The balance is dry warehousing or additional space for future expansions. The retail area is set to open about March 1.

“We have tried just about everything to generate sales channels and participate in value-added beef,” Blake continued. “Ultimately, we decided further processing for ourselves and others — while developing retail, e-commerce, wholesale and trading partners — was the way to go. At our size it had to be an all-encompassing approach with a flexible processing facility at our disposal.”

At one point, the shop operated out of a beautiful retail store built in downtown Norfolk in a historic building, but the shop just didn’t have the foot traffic to support the business, Blake said.

“Our latest iteration is blending the bulk beef approach we have built at our new plant with the more premium retail experience we had built in the past,” he said. “It’s a full circle moment for us.

“What we learned initially was that our local customers wanted to buy in bulk and were seeking value, while our online customers wanted the story and the premium products. We found out that buyers existed locally too, we just didn’t have enough name recognition in the beginning.”

Blake and Brittany Albers represent the fifth generation of the family in the meat business. (Source: Albers Craft Meats)

E-commerce is key

As far as custom processing goes, Blake said his company focuses on the “on the cusp” producers who sell 12-15 animals a month and are ready to scale up. Many of these producers started beef brands after live cattle and beef prices effectively divorced. They have larger commodity operations and the small beef programs they started need to grow to justify the time and capital sink. Blake said he figured his company could help them balance the animal through turnkey services. Albers Craft Meats focused on everything from snack sticks for the trim, to working with meat traders to sell off 50/50 trim or an excess of inside rounds for an example. His goal is to help grow those smaller beef producers into long-term players who can increase their volume and make it worth the labor.

“My wife Brittany and I decided we needed a hook for e-commerce orders,” Blake said. “We developed our Prepped Protein line of pre-cooked individual portioned meats. It gives (customers) something unique to our site and a reason to shop with us. There are a lot of farm-to-fork concepts out there now, and you need to stand out.”

His vision of the online meat shop can be seen in more detail on the website: alberscraftmeats.com. Items like boneless ribeye, strip steaks and tenderloin can be found under the Craft Meats section. Smaller size portions (6 oz) of lemon pepper or fiesta chicken, spiced and ready-to-heat-and-eat, are available along with such items as a 20-pack of their original snack sticks (each package has three 1.5 oz sticks), a way of catering to those with more active lifestyles or those constantly on the go.

The website is also navigable by such criteria as budget, pick-up options, premium and non-premium. Selections can also be located by alphabetical order, best-selling, by price, featured and old or new stock categories.

Albers Craft Meats also offers seafood, franks and sausage and is moving quickly to begin making its own versions of those latter products.

While the present is a constantly changing environment that produces new challenges to build traffic, Blake advised that the prospect of having several other brick-and-mortar locations is in his mind but will take time.

“For now, we are featuring and celebrating ‘the taste of Nebraska’ with our customers, letting them know who produces these meats, how they are raised and that there are meats for every family in every price range,” he said. “The dream here is sustainability for our local farmers and producing products we are happy to sell because we know the consumer will enjoy them.”

Blake feels that connecting the e-commerce aspect and cost effectiveness to the ability his store has to be flexible and readily responsive to customer needs is a strong advantage for this nearly 100-year-old farm and feedlot family. Today there are nine family members among the 15 employees at Albers Farms and about 10 working at the USDA inspected processing facility.

Building from references

There is very much a ‘spread-the- word’ approach to the company’s marketing. They offer customers who refer new shoppers to the store a rewards program that can earn them free meat products or a discount. And Albers is sharp at reading customer wishes for items like gift boxes. They offer from four to six different holiday or seasonal choices. When a company or office is looking for pricing on meat gift ideas for employees or customers, the employees at the store will ask them what amount they have budgeted for that purchase and give them a number of choices that fit their planning.

The newly opened retail store operates as Albers Craft Meats, but pick-ups can be made and shopping done at the location they call Lot 279 at the new facility. Blake makes no apology for the retail concept not being a custom cut and service location:

“We uniformly cut and package what we have,” he explained. “When the customer realizes what we are saving them through standardized portions and cuts, they come to appreciate that, in the long run, we really are saving them money.”