WKBW-TV reports:
Some new numbers are showing that the U.S. has more than 2.5 billion lbs [1.1 million metric tons] of meat in cold storage warehouses, and it's all because Americans aren't eating enough to keep up with supply.
Another reason is that the trade situation is chipping away at global demand.
[...] The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects the industry will produce a record 102.7 billion pounds of meat this year.
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2.5 Billion Pounds of Meat is Piling up in the US as Exports Slow Down
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(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:42AM (4 children)
The smell will be even better if/when those cold storage start to break down with nowhere to move the stuff.
Tell you what: better use that protected American steel to build barbecues, folks, they'll be more expensive but the meat should be cheap (if it will actually be cheap is a thing yet to be seen).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:26AM (2 children)
Remember when all the unions wanted tariffs? I do, because I used to debate them.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:41PM (1 child)
So, is the Meat Cutter's union hurting today? No? What's that? There's no meat cutter's union? No ranch hand union? Few people who work with food, on the hoof, all the way to on the table, have unions representing them.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 27 2018, @02:29AM
Dunno about lower down the chain, but at the retail grocery level, a lot of 'em are AFL-CIO. And when the union decided it was time to strike, the union achieved very little for said meatcutters, but sure enjoyed the union's cut (which is to say, 100%) of the wage increase. (Friend was a union meatcutter, so I had a ringside seat.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:04PM
exactly, I'm afraid they'd rather build more refrigerated warehouse space than sell meat at lower prices.
(Score: 3, Touché) by zzarko on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:01AM (4 children)
Hahaha! You deserve the country that works this way...
C64 BASIC: 1 a=rnd(-52028):fori=1to8:a=rnd(1):next:fori=1to5:?chr$(rnd(1)*26+65);:next
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:15PM (3 children)
Yes, indeed, we do. But please kindly remember that a good margin more than half of us were not dumb enough to vote for this jackass clown.
But focus on the future, not the past.
If we have an excess of meat:
* feed it to the vegetarians
* relabel it as "soy" or "all natural" or "health food" or some other such baloney, ooops, I mean non-meat product
* repurpose it as furniture stuffing material
* if it is possible for it to meat the high standards of American dog food, then make it into dog food
* donate it to homeless shelters, food kitchens, etc
* abandon large truckload quantities at all PETA offices
* use it as building material for constructing a wall on our southern border
* and northern border
* and east and west coastlines
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BananaPhone on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:51PM (2 children)
Mark my words: They will WASTE it.
They will bury or burn it.
They will NEVER feed somebody who will not (Or cannot) pay for it. (It would affect profits)
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:03PM
Storing excess meat outdoors in large piles next to PETA offices would not be a waste. And I did offer other suggestions that don't involve trying to help people who can't pay.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @05:46PM
you're probably right and the people should kill them for it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:24AM (4 children)
That's a little less than 3.5kg/person in the US (and far less than the amount in my freezer). Maybe if they lowered the prices a bit. It's about 1 week of meat for a family of 4.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:25AM (2 children)
For comparison:
While I have no data, perhaps someone can correct me, but I suspect that we in the UK eat less than 1kg per head per week (ration was about 100g per head during WW2),
and that we have about 2 days "storage" in place - ie roughly what is in transit from farm to place.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:32PM
Yes, it's on the high side, but I think a lot less than what most people ear here. Recommended is ~700g/day for a family of 4.
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:16PM
Whoa. My family eats roughly 0.5 lbs/person for dinner alone (1lb of ground beef in spaghetti for the two of us). That puts us around 1.58kg/adult/week for dinner alone. My family would be well over *twice* what you folks eat.
InB4 "fat Americans" - This is not a fat family. I'm around 13% body fat nowadays and an amateur-level gymnast (B-class skills). My wife is non-athletic, probably 25% BF, and general eats less meat than I do (and less overall). Personally, I'm probably pretty well over 0.5kg/day, which is crazy to think that I'm eating your weeks' quota every 2 days.
Data shows that I'm a bit high, but that the average American is at 0.3kg/day, and 2 kg/week. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/americans-meat-consumption-set-to-hit-a-record-in-2018/ [seattletimes.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by stretch611 on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:33PM
If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding! [youtube.com]
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 4, Informative) by deimtee on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:28AM (18 children)
102 billion lbs production per year, 2.5 billion lbs in storage. So between one and two weeks worth of production in storage. Seems reasonable.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:15AM (10 children)
If you have unlimited storage, your 'reasonable' seems... well.. reasonable.
But the question is 'Do you actually have unlimited storage'?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:35PM (7 children)
Hmm, sounds like a complicated question. Can't we just all have a nation-wide cookout this weekend to tackle this problem?
A co-worker who loves to cook was telling me about the ability of food to bring people together. Maybe a national cookout weekend is what we need.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:55PM (6 children)
What would you prefer: have a national cookout or left/right spat each other on Soylentnews? Wait, don't tell me, it's inconsequential!
'tis true. This is why your (the free-and-the-brave) masters will not allow it, even if that meat is to rot in the storage.
You must troll each other and must not [soylentnews.org] come together; they'll have no power over you if you realize you have more in common between you than between you and the political/corporate ruling classes.
(grin - or is it?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:45PM (5 children)
Why can't we have the national cookout, and serve liberals? Nothing could ever get conservatives and liberals any closer than eating the liberals!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:55PM (3 children)
You're in a bad mood today, old man :) And remember, you are what you eat, so eating liberals might make you--gasp--reasonable, humane, and unselfish! And we can't have THAT, oh no, Cthulhu FORBID!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:00PM (2 children)
Eating cows hasn't made me herbivorous. I'll take my chances.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:14PM
Yeah, but eating all that shit has turned you into a complete shit for brains. You didn't get the best of that deal, let me tell you...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:20PM
No, but you started the emit bullshit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:08PM
One must put a limit in what the pigs eat. For the sake of pigs' health, if nothing else.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:24PM
If you're going to JIT, and you have unlimited storage, then clearly you're a Java developer.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 27 2018, @02:39AM
Observationally, a week's supply in the retail pipeline is about normal. So, a couple billion pounds or so. Or, a couple percent of the annual total. And if for some reason the supply got a little ahead of the demand (and carcass storage space), just cut back on slaughter operations for a day or two and it'll catch up; I'm sure they do such calculations all the time.
Problem with flinging around these OMG numbers is that most people have ZERO sense of the scale of feeding a nation of some ~340 million hungry mouths.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:58AM (6 children)
Also, it's worth pointing out that if supply is exceeding demand then the stuff will keep piling up because the farms sure as heck are not going to slow production until the price people pay for it falls below the point where all the sellers and middlemen can still turn a profit. JIT warehouses generally work on a FIFO basis, so that means everyone is going to be eating meat that will have sat in an over-sized freezer that you personally have no idea of how sanitary it might really be for longer and longer until the backlog is cleared. Something to keep in mind before you pull that rare and bloody hunk of meat off the BBQ and drop it on a plate this summer.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:56PM (1 child)
A bit of a digression, but if you're talking about a solid hunk of beef (like a steak), the vast majority of bacterial contamination present is generally on the surface. A surface sear on a grill (or very hot pan or whatever) will be sufficient to make the meat safe to eat. If that weren't so, Americans would suffer food poisoning at much greater rates by eating medium-rare or rare steak.
Things are different for things like a hamburger, where the interior is likely to be contaminated during processing. That's why various food safety organizations recommend higher cooking temperatures or pasteurization steps to ensure safe burgers... And why ground beef is frequently a source of outbreaks.
Also, you referenced an "oversized freezer" for storage: bacteria don't grow in freezing temperatures and most commercial meat stored that way is vacuum-packed in primal or subprimal cuts at wholesale before being broken down and repackaged for retail sale. A vacuum-sealed hunk of beef is not going to accumulate more bacteria or become more unsafe whether it's stored for a few days or a few months. (Though eventually quality may begin to degrade.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:19PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:47PM (1 child)
The market is going to be distorted by Trump's new welfare for farmers, so expect more and more meat to pile up in cold storage.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:56PM
FTFY
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:42PM
If they included these things, their might not be a story.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:51PM
and how much of the excess is due to falling US consumption vs. falling exports.
US meat consumption is UP! [bloomberg.com]
It's entirely driven by exports being reduced.
FTA: The U.S. meat industry has been meat more reliant on exports in recent years, but Mexico and China — which are some of the largest foreign buyers of meat — have both set tariffs on pork products. The tariffs were in response to U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum, and other products.
Pretty sure that's related to Trump's dumbass trade war (and that someone is desperately trying to get in front of this story considering the summary is a blatant lie)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:29AM (2 children)
Who can write stuff like this where a sentence contradicts the one right before it?
(Score: 5, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:29PM (1 child)
Obviously the reporter being quoted could write such stuff.
If, as a nation, we are accepting of a president who cannot read, write, or speak in complete sentences, then why should we be more demanding of reporters?
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:54PM
US consumption is UP (see my previous post for citation).
Exports are down due to tariffs. (FTA)
And yet, it's American's not keeping up with supply. Sound's like somebody is carrying water for the administration....
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MostCynical on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:30AM (12 children)
how many of the farms producing the surplus were subsidised?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:04AM (6 children)
Everyone that is owned by big business.
Small family farmers are screwed.
(and... does this mean that I am more cynical than MostCynical?)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:07AM
Nope. Just realistic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:31AM (4 children)
https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2015/03/17/family-farms-are-focus-new-agriculture-census-data/ [usda.gov]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:43AM
Note that this isn't necessarily how it is, just how it looks on paper.
For instance consider chicken farms. The farms are indeed owned by families. The product however is owned by big business that gives the farmers chickens to grow for them. (ie: family farm gets to own everything that costs money (land taxes, repair/construction costs, etc) but the businesses own everything that make money. (The chickens.)
I wouldn't be at all surprised that other types of farms are similarly controlled.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:47AM
Ergo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by leftover on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:45PM (1 child)
Maybe true but really misleading. Try looking at acres farmed, commodity product sold, annual revenue per "farmer" for ADM, etc. vs. all family farms.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:54PM
My friend's family bought a farm when his parents retired. The way it worked is they did all the farming then sold the harvest to the big company who acted like a co-op and bought all the food to be processed and distributed.
None of the farmers had global, or even national distribution networks. And as people here like to point out, there are great efficiency gains in scaling. Can you imagine a grocery in Japan finding, much less negotiating with a farmer in Ohio. And then having to do that for every item they sell. And having to do it every week because that's how long a harvest lasts. And coordinating with storage warehouses because your plums have a shelf life of two days unrefrigerated?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:57PM (4 children)
Before, or after, Trump's additional $12 billion in farm welfare?
To Ease Pain of Trump’s Trade War: $12 Billion in Aid for Farmers [nytimes.com]
If they can't compete aren't we supposed to let them go bankrupt? Sounds like wealth redistribution to me...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @02:41AM (3 children)
It is only wealth redistribution if the farmers are not white. Just like rural infrastructure isn't welfare (winkwink) this isn't either.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday July 27 2018, @04:39AM (2 children)
"Just like rural infrastructure isn't welfare "
Cities are already solar powered. Solar energy is delivered in concentrated form called food. Try getting it from the fields to the cities without roads and bridges. So, they're really subsidizing your dinner plate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @07:38PM (1 child)
So much stupid here.
I pay for that food via my paycheck. Not a government handout. So subsidized by me. And to well run farms at a profit.
And if what you claimed was near valid it would apply to farmers. Not to vacation homes and everything else that exists out in rural areas.
Utilities in rural areas are not profitable without government handouts. You really are a welfare queen.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Saturday July 28 2018, @01:58AM
Compare the cost of food in the US to in other places. It's heavily subsidized via taxation and spending on the infrastructure to produce/transport it. If you had to pay directly the cost to your takehome pay would be higher (though taxes across the board might be lower. Might be. Government economics has its own rules, yet seems to defy them regularly). It's one of the arguments brought up in the debates about local food. If I'm stupid for saying that, so be it. Every time I learn something it's an exercise in seeing how stupid and ignorant I am.
I often see people talking about how this place or that place is such a drag on society. A lot of rural types say it about cities. It's all bullshit. Society is an integrated system. Cut off a part of it and it has systemic effects throughout. You need concentrated population for economies of scale for some things. On the other hand, you also need less heavily populated areas because you need to have the space to grow food without eating it all up on site.
Yes, I know about vertical farming, but when it comes to mass production of food having a lot of area for sunlight without having to lift everything to heights is at least currently more efficient. (The fact that Dick Despommier (look him up if you don't know the name) is a great guy and I love his parasitism podcast work notwithstanding. He just hasn't convinced me on the vertical farm front.)
Usually this argument boils down to "The desirable people, like me, versus the less desirable ones like them." It's artificial and often used to try to get a rise out of people. Good luck with that. I've been called far worse than welfare queen. ;)
(Score: 2) by ewk on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:44AM (2 children)
Or maybe they're just fed up pf it all :-)
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:23PM (1 child)
Maybe they are learning about the different forms of beef production, feedlot v pasture. Diet of grains and antibiotics v grass.
This might be informative :- http://www.goodfoodworld.com/2012/01/grass-fed-vs-feedlot-beef-whats-the-difference/ [goodfoodworld.com]
From Foxnews.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/07/22/study-says-raising-beef-creates-more-pollution-than-pork-poultry-or-dairy.html [foxnews.com]
Yes, I still eat beef. Sometimes it's what's for dinner.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeVilla on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:18PM
The more heat-trapping gases trapped inside of cows at any given time, the better. Otherwise it would be in the atmosphere. Cows get their heat-trapping gases from the environment and give it back when they die (like the rest of us). The problem is the heat-trapping gases we dig up from isolation in the earth's crust and put in the air.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:03PM (1 child)
Aging of beef is known to improve flavor, but it's most efficiently and effectively done during storage in large hunks at wholesale. But these days it's not done because the extra storage costs (as well as some loss in usable weight). So consumers are used to bland beef.
But now producers and wholesalers may be forced to hold onto stock for a little longer. So why not have an aged beef renaissance with this opportunity??
(Yes I'm mostly kidding and realize the logistics and storage isn't in place to allow this. But one can dream...)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:28PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_aging [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:07PM (1 child)
The only surprise in these comments is that I seem to be the first to ask,
...
...
Where's the beef?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:26PM
Nowhere. You are talking pigs now.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:09PM (6 children)
Let's sanity check this. If the meat is piling up, it should be getting a lot cheaper at the grocery sale. Possibly even below cost since 25 cents on the dollar is more than they'll get for it if it spoils.
NOPE! apparently not.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:21PM (5 children)
You're assuming that the meat market is fully elastic. Can you prove that's the case?
If you have 200 "meats" and sell for $5, you sell 100, make $500, and trash 100.
If you have 200 "meats" and sell for $2.50, you sell 180, you make $450, and trash 20.
Better in that case to sell at the higher price despite having to trash 5 times as many.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:43PM (4 children)
Given the number or people who would use more meat and less filler if they could afford it, there is almost certainly enough elasticity to make lowering the price the right more.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:26PM (3 children)
http://www.countinganimals.com/meat-consumption-and-demand-both-in-decline/ [countinganimals.com] suggests demand for meat is falling irrespective of the price - therefore I'm not convinced by your assertion. It feels like people are turning away from meat anyway
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:16PM (2 children)
That is far from an inelastic market. The very article you point to admits that high prices are certainly a factor. It isn't the ONLY factor, but it is a factor. It is a factor that can be addressed through pricing.
again, if there is a big surplus of unsold meat, prices should be falling to salvage as much as the industry can from the situation.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday July 27 2018, @02:21PM (1 child)
Article's expected elastitcy figures show
Beef/Port/Chicken/Turkey at $100, 1000 are bought -- total $100k
Beef at $109.77, 959 are bought -- total $105k
Pork at $107.68, 943 are bought -- total $102k
Chicken at $104.34, 996 are bought -- total $104k
Turkey at $119.75, 980 are bought -- total $117k
In all categories a higher price means more income was expected
Therefore I would expect that a lower price means less income.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday July 27 2018, @04:40PM
A simple linear approximation of a complex curve with thresholds. It also doesn't account for a use it or lose it situation for a perishable product including disposal cost if you lose it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:42PM (1 child)
Yet we still have homeless Americans going hungry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:36PM
By design. It increases the effectiveness of the fentanyl.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday July 27 2018, @04:29AM
I'll get my grill out and cook up a steak. I know it's a terrible sacrifice, but we all must bear our burdens.
(Are they stockpiling potatoes? I'll force myself to bake one to go with the steak. The things I do for my country. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @03:49AM
We can't starve our customers!
They demand halal so it must be shipped live to be brutally slaughtered in a county that does not enforce animal cruelty prevention laws