Mountain Top Cattle Co

08/24/2026

You don't strengthen the beef supply by undercutting the people who produce it.

07/31/2026

Did you know?

You paid $6.98 per pound for ground beef at the supermarket. Record price, right? Here is what the rancher who raised that cow actually made: roughly $2.50 per pound. Maybe less.

This is the story nobody is telling about high beef prices: the record numbers consumers see at checkout have almost nothing to do with ranchers getting rich. Ranchers capture only 35 to 40 percent of the final retail dollar, down from 60 percent in 1980. That means 60 to 65 percent of what you paid went somewhere else in the supply chain.

According to USDA Economic Research Service data on meat price spreads, retail margins jumped to an average of $2,035 per head in early 2026—up $595 from the pandemic year and $690 per head higher than the 2016-2019 average. Retailers are expanding their cut of the beef price while ranchers and processors are getting squeezed from both directions.

A rancher still needs to raise that cow for $1,044 in estimated operating costs. When they sell it, they get between 35 and 40 cents of every dollar that reaches the supermarket. But the retailer who sells you that pound of ground beef? They maybe keeping the rest.

So the next time someone says beef is expensive because ranchers are being paid too much, the numbers tell a different story. The rancher is not the one keeping that $6.98. The rancher is the one paying the bills.

Where do you think the real profit in the beef supply chain is being made right now—with ranchers, with processors, or at the retail counter?

05/15/2026

Activist: "Your cows are putting carbon into the atmosphere."

Farmer: "Where did they get it?"

Activist: "What?"

Farmer: "The carbon. Where did the cow get it before it put it anywhere."

Activist: "From... eating?"

Farmer: "From eating grass. And where did the grass get it."

Activist: "The soil?"

Farmer: "The air. The grass pulled it out of the air last spring. The cow ate the grass. The cow breathed some of it back out. It went back into the air it came from."

Activist: "But it's still going into the atmosphere."

Farmer: "It's going back. There's a difference between a thing going somewhere and a thing going back. You've described a circle and you're frightened of it."

Activist: "Then just don't have the cow."

Farmer: "The grass still dies in autumn. It rots where it falls. The carbon goes back into the air either way, just without anyone getting fed in the middle."

Activist: "It's not that simple."

Farmer: "It's grass, cow, breath, grass. Or it's grass, rot, air, grass. Same circle, fewer dinners. If that's complicated for you I'd stay away from the water cycle. That one's got clouds in it."

05/07/2026