High beef prices have been weighing on U.S. businesses and consumers.
They have forced some businesses to make tough decisions about how to handle the increased costs, and some are passing the costs on to customers.
Rob Passio, the owner of Lombardi’s Prime Meats in Philadelphia, told FOX Business correspondent Jeff Flock on “Varney & Co” that “there’s only so much you can absorb as far as the hit to your bottom line before you say to yourself you have to raise these prices.”
The butcher shop, Passio said, hasn’t seen its customers balk at higher prices “because they see it.”
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“They see the inflation. They see the pricing. You know, everything is up,” he told Flock.
Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation data measured by the consumer price index (CPI) showed prices for beef and veal were up 2.4% month-over-month and 7.6% year-over-year in February.
The overall CPI posted a 0.2% increase month-over-month and a 2.8% jump year-over-year.
Courtney Schmidt, sector manager at Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, told FOX Business last month that high beef prices were driven by tighter U.S. beef production with consistent consumer demand.
The U.S. cattle herd is experiencing a down cycle, with cattle inventories at historically low levels in 2025, according to Schmidt.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported in late January that U.S. farms had 86.7 million head of cattle and calves. The count for beef cows specifically was 27.9 million, a decline of 1% compared to the same time last year, according to the USDA.
“I know they’re killing smaller cattle, so they’re trying, I guess, to kill them faster to create the supply that demand is needing,” Passio said.
Some big companies source beef from Canada and Mexico, Flock reported on “Varney & Co.”
President Donald Trump imposed 25% import tariffs on goods entering the U.S. from those two countries March 4 and, more recently, introduced exemptions for Mexico and Canada on goods under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement until early April.
Such a levy on imported beef would “increase the price,” according to Passio, adding that consumers “are going to pay for it.”
“My philosophy is to sell it as low as you can to show a savings, a value to the customer. And hopefully you have more customers to generate your revenue,” the Lombardi Prime Meats owner told Flock.
In the U.S., ground beef averaged $5.63 per pound in February, while the per-pound price of boneless sirloin steak came in at $11.90, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Those average prices were 9.6% and 1.6% higher, respectively, than the same month in 2024.
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The USDA projected in a report released this month that U.S. beef production is poised to amount to 26.685 billion pounds this year.
Daniella Genovese contributed to this report.
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