Why is Beef So Expensive?

While menu prices are high in steak houses and the labor cost of cooks flipping steaks and plating hash browns can be low, there is a lot more here than meets the eye. As The New York Times’ Florence Fabricant reported this spring, the price of steer at slaughter bounced from 83 cents a pound in April 2006 to 98 cents a pound this April. After slaughtering, transporting, storing, and butchering, a restaurant’s cost for steak may be up as much as 30 percent over last year. Commercial beef is fed corn, and demand for corn for ethanol has driven up that price, causing farmers to send younger, smaller animals to slaughter, and creating a shortage of Prime beef as well. Despite more farmland being turned over to corn this growing season, the still-growing popularity of steak houses means steak prices may never come down.