02/14/2025
We've been getting a lot of questions recently from folks asking how much a quarter or half beef costs. We recently sold a half beef to a customer where we lined up the local farmer to provide a beef for them. Here's how it turned out:
Pricing of the animal is based on the market. Current carcass price is $3.20- $3.37 based on the carcass weight. The price this particular customer paid was $3.37 per pound based on carcass weight. Our whole carcasses tend to be around 1000 pounds, and this one was 999 pounds, so 500 pounds for the half. 500 pounds times $3.37 equals $1685, so that was their cost for half of the animal.
Their processing fee was $682.05. $682.05 divided by 500 (carcass weight) amounts to $1.36 per pound processing fee based on carcass weight.
So if we add the cost of the animal to the processing fee, this customer paid $2,367.05. After we trimmed out the carcass, the customer took home 303 pounds of meat. $2,367.05 divided by 303 pounds equals a final cost of $7.80 per pound based on the take-home weight. While that may be more expensive than you can buy ground beef at the grocery store for, $7.80 is a super low price for the steaks, roasts, ribs, patties, etc. that this customer had their beef made into. We compared cut-by-cut what this customer paid for the animal and processing vs. what they would pay at the grocery store's retail price, and in this example the customer saved over $500. Even more importantly, they know they are getting super high quality beef that's raised locally, processed locally, and will feed their family for months to come.
There are some important disclaimers here. This was a high-quality beef that yielded well. Not all animals will yield this well. This customer also saved all their steaks, ribs, and roasts rather than having that meat made into ground beef. If they had ground up these cuts for ground beef, then the savings compared to the grocery store would be less. This customer did not have any value-added products made other than 12 pounds of patties. If they would have had us turn some of the beef into sticks or jerky, their bill would have been higher. As mentioned, the price comparison we used for the grocery store was at their retail price, not sale price. Lastly, a 1000 pound whole carcass is larger than most, but the great news is that most of the costs are based on the weight of the animal, so if you get a smaller animal, your bill will be less.
It should be noted that in the example above, this customer did not save their liver, heart, tongue, or beef tallow, so those weights were not included in their take-home weight. If you want us to save any of those items for you, we are glad to do so at no extra charge!
You may be thinking that you only need a quarter instead of a half, so how much does a quarter beef cost? Just take the numbers listed above and cut them in half. There is a small extra fee on quarters of 7 cents per pound of carcass weight. Therefore if this 500 pound half was processed as two quarters, each quarter would have cost $17.50 extra.
We do have a beef processing calculator on our website you can use to estimate processing costs. There is also a link to the complete price list there as well as a link to many other handy resources such as the "How Much Meat Do We Get" file and an FAQ document.
Ready to fill your freezer yet? Give us a call at 563-928-6814 or send us a message and we can set you up!
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https://edgewoodlocker.com/proc/beef/
