D&D Meats

08/28/2026

More competition. Less unnecessary regulation. Strong food safety standards.

NCBA supports creating more opportunities for small, mid-size and regional beef processors—and eliminating unnecessary regulations that make it harder for those businesses to compete.

But weakening federal meat inspection and food safety standards is not the answer.

America’s cattle producers have spent generations earning consumer confidence in the safety and quality of U.S. beef. That trust is invaluable, and so is the gold standard food safety system that helps sustain it. Neither should be jeopardized for a short-term political solution.

If Washington wants to help cattle producers, the focus should be on:
✅ Reducing legitimate regulatory burdens
✅ Lowering fuel and fertilizer costs
✅ Protecting the U.S. cattle herd from foreign animal disease
✅ Expanding opportunities for small, mid-size and regional processors

American farmers and ranchers know how to produce safe, high-quality beef.

Washington should stop trying to manage the cattle business and let the market work.

08/28/2026

08/27/2026

# Why We Import Beef

This is why imported beef plays an important role in the U.S. beef supply chain.

Consider the following simple illustration:

**Estimated U.S. daily ground beef consumption:**
Approximately **47,000,000 pounds per day**

**U.S. daily cattle slaughter:**
Approximately **105,000 head per day**

For illustration, assume an average **600-pound carcass cutout** and, unrealistically, that **50% of the carcass** could be utilized as ground beef:

**105,000 head × 600 lbs. × 50% = 31,500,000 lbs.**

That would leave:

**31,500,000 lbs. domestic ground-beef equivalent**
**− 47,000,000 lbs. estimated daily demand**
**= 15,500,000-lb. daily shortfall**

And that example actually overstates the amount of ground beef that could realistically be obtained from each carcass because 50% is not a realistic assumption for total ground-beef yield.

Using a hypothetical **25%** figure instead:

**105,000 × 600 lbs. × 25% = 15,750,000 lbs.**

Against approximately 47 million pounds of daily ground-beef demand, that illustrates an even larger gap.

# # # The Point

This is **not intended to be a precise accounting of U.S. beef production or ground-beef consumption.** It is a simple illustration of the basic economics behind the U.S. beef import system.

Every animal does not become ground beef.

A beef carcass must supply steaks, roasts, ground beef, trim, and other products. At the same time, consumers and foodservice operators have enormous demand for ground beef—particularly lean ground beef used in burgers.

The U.S. cattle industry produces a tremendous amount of high-quality beef, but the composition of that production does not perfectly match domestic demand.

That is where imported lean beef trim becomes economically important.

The U.S. can use imported lean trim to complement domestic beef and fat, producing the specific lean-to-fat ratios demanded by the ground-beef and fast-food markets.

**This is Economics 101: supply and demand.**

The purpose of the import system is not simply because America cannot produce beef.

It is because the American market demands different types of beef in enormous quantities, and international trade allows processors to combine domestic and imported components to meet that demand at a price consumers are willing to pay.

Without that flexibility, the cost of producing certain ground-beef products would rise substantially, and some consumer demand would disappear.

The bigger question for the American beef industry is how we can use this trade system while still maintaining a domestic cattle industry that is profitable enough to rebuild the U.S. herd and remain economically sustainable.

**D&D Meats believes the answer is a more efficient, vertically integrated domestic supply chain that captures more value from every animal—from conception to the end consumer.**

08/22/2026

**D&D MEATS: WHY WE STARTED BUILDING A COMPLETE BEEF SUPPLY CHAIN IN 2019**

In 2019, D&D Meats began planning to become an entity with control of our product from **conception of the animal all the way to the end consumer.**

We didn't make that decision because it was easy. We made it because we could see where the beef industry was headed.

Since 2019, the cost of producing beef has continued to increase—from feed, labor, utilities, equipment, transportation, processing, and regulatory compliance to virtually every other part of the supply chain.

But retail prices have not increased at the same rate.

One of the reasons is the increasing dependence on imported beef.

U.S. beef and veal imports increased from approximately **3.34 billion pounds in 2021 to 5.39 billion pounds in 2025.** During the first six months of 2026, the United States imported approximately **3.30 billion pounds**, up about **12% from the same period in 2025.**

Now, the federal government has announced a temporary allowance for up to **300,000 metric tons—approximately 661 million pounds—of additional lean beef trimmings to enter the U.S. market without the higher out-of-quota tariff.**

At D&D Meats, we believe this highlights the problem we recognized years ago.

**The American beef industry has a cost problem.**

From the cow-calf producer to the feeder, processor, and ultimately the end user, the domestic supply chain must be able to recover the actual cost of producing beef if we expect American cattle production to remain sustainable.

Imported beef may provide short-term relief for consumers, but it does not solve the long-term economics of producing American beef.

That is why we chose a different path.

Our goal has been to build a supply chain that looks like this:

**GENETICS → COW/CALF → FINISHING → HARVEST → USDA GRADING → PROCESSING → MARKETING → DISTRIBUTION → CONSUMER**

The more of that supply chain we control, the more value we can keep within the Tennessee beef industry—and the more control we have over quality, traceability, pricing, and the relationship with the consumer.

We aren't trying to compete with imported commodity beef by simply becoming cheaper.

**We are building a product that consumers can know exactly where it came from.**

**Born in Tennessee.**
**Raised in Tennessee.**
**Harvested in Tennessee.**
**USDA Graded.**
**Processed in Tennessee.**

We started building this model in **2019**.

Today's beef market is showing us exactly why we did.

**D&D Meats — Building the Tennessee Beef Supply Chain from the Ground Up.**

08/22/2026

📢 Calling all cattle producers – we need your help!

Tell Congress and the White House to support American cattle producers, not actions that undercut them like importing foreign beef.

✅ Use this link to send a letter > beef.quorum.us/campaign/vp4cc3p0

08/14/2026

Which sounds impossible right up until you look at what a packer actually buys.

Tyson does not sell cattle. It buys them, and cattle are the most expensive thing in the building. The national herd is the smallest it has been in about 75 years, and the animals that do exist are being bid on by every plant that needs to keep a line moving.

That is the squeeze in one sentence.

The company expects an adjusted operating loss of between $500 million and $650 million in its beef segment for fiscal 2026. On August 13 it announced it will close plants in Joslin, Illinois and Eagle Mountain, Utah and seek a buyer for Pasco, Washington, concentrating beef at Dakota City, Nebraska, Holcomb, Kansas and Amarillo, Texas. Tyson pointed at what it called one of the most historic cattle shortages the country has ever experienced, and at USDA data suggesting it lasts.

Meanwhile the shelf tells the opposite story.

Retail beef set a record at $9.64 a pound in April, according to USDA Economic Research Service figures. Ground beef ran $6.75 in May. Steak averaged $12.80. Shoppers are paying more than ever for the same product the largest processor is losing money on.

So sympathy divides fast. One side says this is what a real supply shock looks like, that a half-empty plant loses money regardless of the shelf price, and losses this size are not a strategy anyone chooses. The other says packers posted historic margins for years when cattle were cheap, never passed it back up the chain, and are only now finding out how the other end feels.

Half-empty plants or a turn finally coming due. Which is it. Say so below.

Sources: Tyson Foods, Reuters, Fox Business, USDA Economic Research Service, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

04/12/2026

New residents at D&D Meats. This has been a week long battle to get these Osprey to move off of our three phase service pole. We finally succeeded as of 4/11/26.