Pork Price On the Rise?

[Juggy D Beerman]

Yo to all, My local grocery store was bought out by Hy-Vee and now sells Hormel pork products only as Hy Vee has an exclusive contract with Hormel to sell only Hormel pork products. All of these products contain 12% sodium infused water. I complained to the store management that due to my high blood pressure, I cannot eat pork that contains this solution, They offered to special order me the non-injected pork and said that due to the product being special ordered, I would be paying a higher price than what they charged for the Hormel product.


My reply to this offer was, "You mean to tell me that I have to pay more for meat that is unadulterated with solution will cost me more than meat that undergoes the unnecessary manipulation by injecting salt water? If I buy a ten pound pork butt, I am actually paying for 8.8 lbs of meat and 1.2 pounds of water. Meat is not supposed to have an ingredients list!"



Knowing that I was chasing a windmill, I walked out of the store vowing to never purchase any meat from a store I had been doing business with for 40 years.


Yesterday, while in KC, I stopped by Price Chopper to buy a couple of pork butts. There was a 19 lb C-O-V package of pork butts that was priced around $76.00 at $3.89 per pound. I asked the butcher if that price was mis-marked. He said it was not. I replied, that price was higher than what I paid for my first vehicle and higher than what I used to pay for a 220 pound butcher hog. He said the price of pork has been going up.


So to all that are still reading my lengthy diatribe, I ask you, what is the price of pork butt in your area?


Lager,


Juggy

 

[16Adams]

After golf stopped at United Supermarket. Overheard two meat management types discussing full bins and lack of sales. Pork was to the top. No one even looking at full Brisket Bins right at $5#. I perused long enough to one’s apology to the other. He had just received a Pellet Cooker for Father’s Day so he felt “obligated” to cook on his gift.

ATTST: often times Bargain bin beef decides my menu. Picked up nice looking Ribeye-NY Strip and several pounds of ground beef. I don’t do bargain Bin chicken and only 1-2X Bargain Bin Pork. But we like beef best anyway. Seems there’s always some cut of beef. United Mark downs run 40%. The Walmart/Sam’s near me still have yellow tags, but they’re usually 3-5%. Not worth the Park & Hike to explore.

With a decent grinder, doesn’t have to be expensive—you can make ground beef out of almost any beef in the bargain bin. With burger the Sky is the limit.

Pork is a tougher gig.

 

[sudsandswine]

I buy most of my meat from Costco or Sam's. The price of beef and pork is up 100%+ over what I was paying earlier in the year. Price Chopper/Hy-Vee are kind of hit or miss....their "regular" prices are usually fairly high compared to Costco or Sam's but they put things on sale that are competitive or better from time to time. Example - Sam's has whole spare ribs at a shade over $4/lb right now, but Price Chopper has a sale for $1.99/lb.

 

[16Adams]

As our friend says about canoes

I didn't choose the bargain bin life, the bargain bin life chose me

 

[TravelingJ]

Also in KC, so I noticed as well. Ran into a HyVee this morning when I saw the "Meat stock up sale!" Pork butts were like $4/lb. I left the cart and just walked out the door.

Went to Restaurant Depot. I'm pretty underwhelmed, not sure if it's just ours, or the chain doesn't live up to the mystical hype. They didn't have any fresh poultry at all, but pork shoulders were $2.40ish/lb. I bought a few things, but plan on just shopping from sams and saving the trip.

 

[ssv3]

Non injected, fresh pork has doubled in price here. Previously frozen, and/or injected still relatively cheaper but I never buy frozen or injected. Chicken, beef and seafood are reasonable and no major change in price. Only packer briskets prices through the roof.

Costco and local grocery stores

Baby backs 5.69/lb

STLs 4.69 lb

Full spares 3.89/lb

Pork butt $3/lb

 

[rexster314]

Pork bellies at Costco in March were 3.29/lb. Now they're 3.91/lb

 

[Markov]

Wegmans (Northeast) has always had good prices on Non-injected pork butts. It was pretty consistently available for $1.69/lb, even $0.99 outside of summer. Just recently it went up to $2.29/lb.

 

[Ron_L]

Same in the Chicago area. A local grocery chain has butts for $1.99/lb this week, but not too long ago they were $.99/LB. I buy our competition meats from a local packing house at wholesale prices, and the ribs that I used to pay $1.49/lb for are not $5.49/lb :shock: and his butts have gone from $1.99/lb (duroc) to $3.49/lb.

Don't get me started on briskets :-D That same wholesaler hasn't had wagyu briskets for a couple of months and the mail order places that cater to competition teams are telling me that they aren't expecting o get wagyu briskets in stock until September!

We're doing a competition this weekend and I was lucky since I had ribs, butts and a brisket in the freezer.

 

[SoCalWJS]

Everything is going up. Inflation.

At the bottom of a lot of it is the cost of Gas - as gas gets more expensive, everything goes up. It costs more every step of the way in the production chain. Gets passed along every step of the way. End product is going to be more expensive.

 

[Big Andy]

Been buying a lot more chicken, ground beef, and shrimp lately. Chicken is up some but I can still find deals on ground beef. Shrimp seems to be about the normal going rate. I can get shrimp for $6lb. or flank steak for $10lb. Went to Sam's yesterday and the pork sections were covered with yellow tags. I buy beef like that but stay away from the pork and chicken.

 

[rob g]

Here in Ontario I can buy pork shoulder for $1.49/lb this week, a couple weeks ago I bought pork loin for $1.88/lb, pork belly at Costco is about $5/lb. The wife just bought lean ground beef for $2.99/lb.

 

[Hamdrew]

A Google search shows that you have an Aldi's in Warrensburg.



Their Tyson Spares are $1.89, Smithfield (? i think) Baby Backs $3.25. Butts I believe usually ~$2/lb, which is expensive to me (hence why I don't know for sure).

 

[PnkPanther]

I generally pay more $ as try to buy from local sources


I wouldn't be surprised if we have some continued fluxiations for a bit

 

[WeberWho]

Pork prices are up. Hy-Vee pork shoulder $1.49/lb two weeks ago. Five days later it was on "sale" for $2.99 normally $3.49. Pretty crazy when I can find brisket cheaper than a pork butt per pound here in MN.

 

[midwest_kc]

I ordered some butts wholesale from a distributor this week, and it was $2.80/lb. In February I paid $1.02. They're definitely going up. Processors say that it's a supply/demand issue. Farmer's say it's the processors intentionally slowing down production, creating a false shortage and that there's plenty of animals. My guess is that it's probably somewhere in between.

 

[PatAttack]

Everything...and I mean everything has gone up.

Ridiculous! I won't go into the politics of why.

Only going to get worse from where we are now.

 

[Perpetual]

Not to make everyone upset here but we had a sale a few weeks back, .98 a pound bone in pork butts.

Good ol Iowa, still bringing in some good deals on pork and beef once in awhile....

 

[thirdeye]

I'm starting to see an increase in price and quality. Prairie Fresh butts are $2.29.

Hey Juggy.... Dang it.... I just realized I was going to call you a couple of weeks ago. I'll be back from Montana on Monday, so let's visit next week?? I'll drop you an e in case you don't see this.

 

[BBQ-Bug]

Not to make everyone upset here but we had a sale a few weeks back, .98 a pound bone in pork butts.

Good ol Iowa, still bringing in some good deals on pork and beef once in awhile....

I’d like to see one of those. I’m seeing pork butts at 3.49/lb. Costco prime brisket was 5.99 last weekend. I picked up some bratwursts.

Those prices won’t last long. They can’t be make many sales at those prices and when the demand slacks more sales will be coming just to move stock.