Fort Worth, Texas — The dinner shopping list for Darlowe Torkelson and his wife was short. At today’s prices, it consisted of just one sirloin steak and one potato.
Torkelson of Argyle, Texas, told CBS News his family doesn’t yet know the upper limit of what they are willing to pay for certain groceries.
“I haven’t found it, I’d like to see it back down,” Torkelson said.
The average cost of one pound of ground beef reached a record-high of $5.80 in April, according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is up nearly 50% from five years ago.
“We are very, very conscious of how high the prices are in the meat case,” said rancher Stephen Kirkland, owner of the Z Bar Cattle Company.
Kirkland said he has been trying to absorb the price increases at the two butcher shops he owns near Fort Worth, Texas.
Kirkland says that a year ago, he could buy cattle for about $1,500 per steer. Now, he says the price has risen to nearly $2,400.
“$2,400 for one steer going into the feed yard, and then feed and everything else, transportation, everything else that gets involved in that,” Kirkland said of the cost.
Raising those steers also comes at a higher cost, with prices going up for feed, land and financing.
Those cost increases have contributed to U.S. cattle herds falling to their lowest numbers in more than 70 years, according to USDA data.
“We’ve had a lot of drought the past couple of years, and so it’s been harder and harder to keep enough grass to feed the cows,” said rancher Kim Radaker Bays, who raises Herefords and Texas Longhorns at Twin Canyons Ranch south of Fort Worth.
She has to weigh the cost to keep the herd fed and healthy against the price they will command at market.
She says that if a cow is non-pregnant, or “open” — meaning it’s not carrying a calf and growing the herd — it’s a better financial decision at today’s prices for Bays to sell it.
“It just costs too much to feed them if you don’t get a calf every year,” Bays explains.
With supplies tightening, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that beef prices will rise throughout 2025.
Kirkland says he won’t speculate on when the price of beef will be too high for consumers.
“But as cattle prices increase, we’re left with no other choice,” Kirkland said. “If we want to stay profitable, we want to stay in business at all, you’ve got to go up on your price.”
