Beef prices and demand destruction

Here’s an article on the CBC about the state of high beef prices (and how they are here to stay for years to come).

There are a few lessons here.

One is that these market-affecting events typically have causes that span a timeframe greater than a calendar year. For instance, this spike in pricing can likely be traced back to 2011 when there was a significant drought that affected most of the corn and grain-producing regions in the USA. The drought was a multi-year event.

When cattlemen cannot obtain enough feedstock for their livestock, they switch to liquidation mode. Beef prices paradoxically went to relative lows at the beginning of the drought but have skyrocketed (as far as food inflation prices go) ever since.

It will take some time for the supply-demand balance to restore itself. However, the other lesson here may be one of demand destruction – have steak prices gone high enough that people will permanently reduce their demand for the product, resulting in a reduction of overall volumes?

The analogy to the crude oil market is also fairly straight-forward in terms of things not coming to any equilibrium over the span of a calendar year.

Retail prices of beef (and other food products) over the past few years are available from Statistics Canada. Onions, carrots and white sugar are the only three things that have dropped in price from April 2011 to April 2015. (As a side note, celery is roughly equal in price, and onions, carrots and celery make the staple Mirepoix that is a classic mix for sauteing, so at least I won’t be giving that up in my diet).

A couple ways of playing the beef situation financially that come immediately to mind (although both do not make any sense under the circumstances). One are through food processors, e.g. Tyson Foods, (NYSE: TSN). There are few “pure beef” processors out there, but one that does come to mind, indirectly, is Leucadia’s (NYSE: LUK) very ill-timed purchase of National Beef Packing Company. I have no interest in either company (either short or long).

For those brave souls, however, cattle futures on the CME are the purest play on beef prices. They are not the purest play on beef volumes, however, which would be easier to play than the price of beef.

Anecdotally, I have noticed my own consumption of beef (especially my favourite cut of steak, rib-eye) decline as I generally look at the opportunity cost of the CAD$27/kg price vs. other meats that I am equally competent at cooking. Also there is the other option of buying tougher cuts of beef and a competent cook can prepare these in a manner that are palatable (e.g. thin-cut stir-fry), but it just isn’t the same!