A livestock economist expects the availability of total meat products to remain steady in 2022, but she does anticipate a shift in the product mix.
Brenda Boetel with the University of Wisconsin River Falls tells Brownfield consumers will have less beef and pork on the market but more poultry. “It’s a supply issue as we are seeing with the cattle herd. We are starting to decline. We’re still contracting so that means there’s eventually going to be less beef supply, and then when we look at the hog industry, we culled quite a few after the 2020 shutdown, so the herd is still smaller there.”
Boetel says inflation and available supplies are impacting consumer meat prices.
