Price fixing is a bad practice. At the same time, to play a bit of devil's advocate, meat consumption in the western world is incredibly high. Many times more than you can reasonably say people...
Price fixing is a bad practice. At the same time, to play a bit of devil's advocate, meat consumption in the western world is incredibly high. Many times more than you can reasonably say people "need"* as part of a healthy diet.
Why am I mentioning this? Well because the huge impact livestock at these numbers has on the environment:
If I remember correctly, producing a single pound of beef takes around 40-50 times more water as it does to grow the same amount of vegetables for human consumption. The latter is important as the majority of grain and soy crop is actually being eaten by our livestock.
Meat production is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, like methane.
Even if everyone just skipped meat one day in the week, it already would have a huge impact. In addition to this, meat is heavily subsidized in both the US and in the EU which has artificially kept meat consumption high for a long time because of how unrealistically cheap meat is.
Which finally brings me to the "devil's advocate" part of this. Maybe having higher meat prices isn't necessarily a bad thing? Assuming of course that it results in people consuming less meat because of it.
* Any vegans, vegetarians, please see this for the nuance I am trying to keep in the conversation and hold your horses. Thanks :)
There's a big difference between paying a high price that reflects (and ideally mitigates) the social cost of a product, and a high price that just increases the profitability of said highly...
There's a big difference between paying a high price that reflects (and ideally mitigates) the social cost of a product, and a high price that just increases the profitability of said highly destructive industry.
High tarrifs on meat imports and high taxes on preprocessed meats (ala restraunts and chicken nuggets) would be exponentially better than collusion.
Hell no. Do you know what companies do with record profits? They tend to turn them into lobbying dollars to entrench their gains and prevent alternatives from being adopted. That's how you get...
Hell no.
Do you know what companies do with record profits?
They tend to turn them into lobbying dollars to entrench their gains and prevent alternatives from being adopted. That's how you get pizza classified as a vegetable. It would be FAR better to have a tariff where the funds went to programs like education, reduced costs of vegetables, or even funding green meat alternatives or new eco-responsible meat production methods.
Companies are not incentivized to be responsible with profits, they are incentivized to make more profits. Hopefully the government can once again be different.
Increased company profits are worse than just raising taxes, totally agree. My point was that if consumers buy less meat due to higher prices, that's arguably a net-positive for the environment,...
Increased company profits are worse than just raising taxes, totally agree. My point was that if consumers buy less meat due to higher prices, that's arguably a net-positive for the environment, regardless of why prices rose. Supply and demand curves, etc.
I am not sure that I agree there is actually a difference. At least not as far as the end result of these high prices is on consumer behavior. Of course, on an ideological level, yes, I agree....
There's a big difference between paying a high price that reflects (and ideally mitigates) the social cost of a product, and a high price that just increases the profitability of said highly destructive industry.
I am not sure that I agree there is actually a difference. At least not as far as the end result of these high prices is on consumer behavior.
Of course, on an ideological level, yes, I agree. Except for high taxes on preprocessed meats. Beef is the biggest contributor by far as environmental impact goes. So I think it makes more sense to target that wholesale. Effectively, most damage meat does to the environment is already done before slaughter, so it doesn't make sense to me to target (pre)processed meats.
What do you mean about consumer behavior, though? At the moment folks are looking for more affordable sources of meat, like the $1/2/3 menus at McDonald's. I haven't seen a thing showing that the...
I am not sure that I agree there is actually a difference. At least not as far as the end result of these high prices is on consumer behavior.
What do you mean about consumer behavior, though? At the moment folks are looking for more affordable sources of meat, like the $1/2/3 menus at McDonald's. I haven't seen a thing showing that the average person is eating less meat.
I'd rather see that extra profit going toward teaching people how to eat differently. When my brother turned vegetarian my mom took him to a psych saying he was anorexic. A lot of people don't know how to eat without meat as the primary focus.
It might be wishful thinking on my part. But given that, at least in this part of the world, you regularly do see articles about eating less meat or a meat free day. I didn't think it to be too...
It might be wishful thinking on my part. But given that, at least in this part of the world, you regularly do see articles about eating less meat or a meat free day. I didn't think it to be too far-fetched.
I'd rather see that extra profit going toward teaching people how to eat differently.
No argument from me there. I am by no means trying to imply that the current situation is the best outcome we can wish for or anything like that.
But if it does push people to actually explore eating less meat, that would still be a benefit. And again, I might have assumed more general knowledge from people.
When my sister turned vegetarian, my mom quickly adjusted and cooked meals that could go well with or without meat, and often also made fully vegetarian meals for all of us.
Which is a perspective which might have colored my reply here.
I'm guessing this has a lot to do with environment. I lived in a very small town in the Midwest growing up. Many of the people in the area were dairy farmers, cows were incredibly important to the...
I'm guessing this has a lot to do with environment. I lived in a very small town in the Midwest growing up. Many of the people in the area were dairy farmers, cows were incredibly important to the local economy.
Name the top first-level consumer of beef and chicken in the world. McDonalds. 1.9 billion lbs of beef, Putting tarrifs in place at that juncture keeps 'cook at home' costs resonable, while...
Name the top first-level consumer of beef and chicken in the world.
McDonalds. 1.9 billion lbs of beef, Putting tarrifs in place at that juncture keeps 'cook at home' costs resonable, while putting a higher floor on profitability for industrial meat production.
You get McDonalds to abandon beef, and greenhouse emissions fall drastically. Wouldn't really be able to tell either.
I highly doubt that the amount of meat consumed at McDonalds is bigger or even close to the consumption of meat in general. I get that you have beef with McDonalds (pun intended), but at the point...
Name the top first-level consumer of beef and chicken in the world.
McDonalds.
I highly doubt that the amount of meat consumed at McDonalds is bigger or even close to the consumption of meat in general.
I get that you have beef with McDonalds (pun intended), but at the point you are talking about I feel like we are entering a fast food in general discussion. Not to mention that it also comes dangerously close to a logical fallacy, where you hyper focus on one thing as the source of all evil and trouble. Which simply isn't how all of this works, you can't solve this by shutting down one company.
According to this source: That is one company. I'd like to see what it looks like when all the fast food places are totalled up. By putting the taxes at the point I suggested, it puts upward price...
To put those numbers in perspective, McDonald‘s buys about 2% of all beef produced globally and 6% of the chicken. In the U.S. market specifically, the company accounts for roughly 4% of all beef consumption and 8% of chicken.
That is one company. I'd like to see what it looks like when all the fast food places are totalled up.
By putting the taxes at the point I suggested, it puts upward price pressure at the producer level, while allowing consumers to access the raw material 'at cost,' incentivizing home preparation of meals which are also substantially healthier. It's a two-for-one sin tax.
Half of the reason meat consumption in the USA is so high is because fast food is dis-proportionally cheap, and they are meat-heavy foods.
While I agree, I very much feel that you are having a different discussion from mine. This would make some home prepared meals cheaper, that much is true. It wouldn't reduce meat consumption that...
the raw material 'at cost,' incentiving homepreparation of meals which are also substantially healthier.
While I agree, I very much feel that you are having a different discussion from mine. This would make some home prepared meals cheaper, that much is true. It wouldn't reduce meat consumption that much, though. It would just shift the meat consumption from broiler breed chickens in McDonalds to broiler breed chickens at home.
Half of the reason meat consumption in the USA is so high is because fast food is disproportionally cheap, and they are meat-heavy foods.
Yup, that we are in agreement over. Half the reason meat heavy fast food can be so cheap is that meat is also very cheap. While I think it is also good to discourage fast food consumption, I again don't think it will affect meat consumption.
Gotcha. But the reason I think it will curb consumption, is that if the cheapest-available fast foods are no longer meat based, it puts the thumb on the scale between "do I opt for fast and cheap,...
Gotcha. But the reason I think it will curb consumption, is that if the cheapest-available fast foods are no longer meat based, it puts the thumb on the scale between "do I opt for fast and cheap, or do I want meat?" More people than not will opt for that first option, at least far more frequently than they do now where the cost/calorie still is very heavily in favor of the value menu burger.
The bag of Chicken Nuggets at the grocer now costs $20 instead of $10, the ICan'tBelieveItsNotChicken Nuggets at $15 now look much better.
You pair that with meat import tariffs (reducing desirability to produce meat for global export), you've driven up cost of meat somewhat organically. You also crank up the regulating dials to insure more ethical and sustainable farming, and meat costs go up dramatically, while insuring that for people whom are still eating meat, the most affordable option is also the healthiest. It makes the 'expensive meat' pill easier to swallow if you can still make a burger for yourself for < $10 while buying one from McDonalds costs $20.
Seperately, chickens are an utterly critical part of a food chain that relies on less poison. Nature's pesticide. They taste better when they've been eating all the pests out of the fields.
Anecdotally, I'd buy the Impossible variant at Burger King 100% of the time if it cost $2 less than the beef equivalent (since I don't really eat McDs). If we can't lower the costs of meat-alternatives, we drive up the cost of meat until the alternatives are better options.
PS - tagging @Minori because this reply also answers their question about how it adjusts consumer behavior.
I'm not in favor of the meat industry making more money. But I do agree that people need to stop eating so much meat. Honestly I don't believe vegetarianism/veganism has been the most productive...
I'm not in favor of the meat industry making more money. But I do agree that people need to stop eating so much meat. Honestly I don't believe vegetarianism/veganism has been the most productive way to reduce America's over-consumption of meat. People need to promote meat reduction, not absolute rules that you must follow for the rest of your life.
I was able to reduce my meat consumption by 90-95% without any effect on my social life or health. I basically only eat meat for special occasions (my birthday, Christmas, etc.) or for social events where there's no other good option (like when a friend wants to share a special recipe with me). Otherwise I'm just eating a lot of beans, nuts, dairy, fruits, pasta and salads. I'm able to put on muscle with this diet without any trouble. My food tastes really good and I feel good. Essentially, nothing of consequence has been lost. It's just a different diet and now I'm not contributing as much to the destruction of the environment that I and other humans need to live in.
Agreed, that is also why I put the asterisks in my comment as I don't think it is productive to try to convert people wholesale when incremental steps can be much easier to achieve.
People need to promote meat reduction, not absolute rules that you must follow for the rest of your life.
Agreed, that is also why I put the asterisks in my comment as I don't think it is productive to try to convert people wholesale when incremental steps can be much easier to achieve.
"Meatless Mondays" and the like work really well even for those that don't care about vegetarianism. Historically, people didn't eat meat every day, much less every meal.
"Meatless Mondays" and the like work really well even for those that don't care about vegetarianism. Historically, people didn't eat meat every day, much less every meal.
I agree with this, not so much because I believe in the ethics and morality of veganism, but because there are so many negative health and environmental effects associated with them. For years...
I agree with this, not so much because I believe in the ethics and morality of veganism, but because there are so many negative health and environmental effects associated with them. For years there have been more and more academic papers being published about the negative health effects of beef, but I have heard people pointing to them saying things like "So what if cars cause cancer? Bacon causes cancer." But maybe instead of giving the rubber stamp to things that can kill us, why don't we all just not get cancer?
Honestly, I'm tired of that handwaving used everywhere. People don't care about air quality enough, when air quality can be so bad in some places that it's taking years of life out of the average lifespan in those areas. The reason why our environment is getting so inhospitable is because of the actions of our collective society. So it only makes sense that the only way to fix it is to actively change society for the better. We need to get it into the popular mindset that things like installing solar and phasing out internal combustion engines in cars are not the things that are going to save us, but are part of a whole host of things we will need to change about the way the world works in order to combat climate change.
A bit of of "inside the industry" folklore: Cattle generally have a 7 year cyclical supply trend. This trend is primarily market dynamics: supply is high and prices low so ranchers begin holding...
A bit of of "inside the industry" folklore:
Cattle generally have a 7 year cyclical supply trend. This trend is primarily market dynamics: supply is high and prices low so ranchers begin holding back cattle from the market, supply bottoms out and prices max out, ranchers release more of their herd into the market until prices come down, rinse and repeat.
Cattle processing and feed lots really struggled over the last 36 months. Some facilities are losing money operating.
Poultry has a much shorter cycle and demand for poultry climbs during these cattle market dips.
Pork is relatively flat.
So most smart corps operate in multiple proteins. Expecting poultry to struggle when beef is strong and vice versa.
There is a turn coming; it's visible in the quarterly financial prints. How much of prices is due to price fixing? I couldn't say, maybe I'm idealistic but I think the industry has been a bit spooked by the accusations and if it's happening it (hopefully) isn't large scale.
Yeah, they colluded to fix bread forever in Canada, of course other food item prices are also fixed. I would hope for more legislation Because working together against the public will always be...
Yeah, they colluded to fix bread forever in Canada, of course other food item prices are also fixed. I would hope for more legislation
Participating processors in the data sharing account for “more than 90% of broiler chicken sales, 80% of pork sales and 90% of turkey sales in the United States,” it added.
Because working together against the public will always be more lucrative than fighting each other to the floor. If they hold long enough and become big enough, they can even activate the Public Coffers for an extra pay day out of our govts.
Bird flu, fuel tax, climate change, they're all real of course, and push costs up higher. But I'm sure that's not all of it when there's no need to compete.
Haven't the last few years seen a humongous outbreak of bird flu affecting poultry prices? There may also be price-fixing happening, but it seems odd that the article does not mention the bird flu...
Haven't the last few years seen a humongous outbreak of bird flu affecting poultry prices? There may also be price-fixing happening, but it seems odd that the article does not mention the bird flu at all.
Price fixing is a bad practice. At the same time, to play a bit of devil's advocate, meat consumption in the western world is incredibly high. Many times more than you can reasonably say people "need"* as part of a healthy diet.
Why am I mentioning this? Well because the huge impact livestock at these numbers has on the environment:
Even if everyone just skipped meat one day in the week, it already would have a huge impact. In addition to this, meat is heavily subsidized in both the US and in the EU which has artificially kept meat consumption high for a long time because of how unrealistically cheap meat is.
Which finally brings me to the "devil's advocate" part of this. Maybe having higher meat prices isn't necessarily a bad thing? Assuming of course that it results in people consuming less meat because of it.
* Any vegans, vegetarians, please see this for the nuance I am trying to keep in the conversation and hold your horses. Thanks :)
There's a big difference between paying a high price that reflects (and ideally mitigates) the social cost of a product, and a high price that just increases the profitability of said highly destructive industry.
High tarrifs on meat imports and high taxes on preprocessed meats (ala restraunts and chicken nuggets) would be exponentially better than collusion.
I agree, but the argument is the effect on consumers' consumption habits is ultimately the same. It's a silver lining of sorts?
Hell no.
Do you know what companies do with record profits?
They tend to turn them into lobbying dollars to entrench their gains and prevent alternatives from being adopted. That's how you get pizza classified as a vegetable. It would be FAR better to have a tariff where the funds went to programs like education, reduced costs of vegetables, or even funding green meat alternatives or new eco-responsible meat production methods.
Companies are not incentivized to be responsible with profits, they are incentivized to make more profits. Hopefully the government can once again be different.
Increased company profits are worse than just raising taxes, totally agree. My point was that if consumers buy less meat due to higher prices, that's arguably a net-positive for the environment, regardless of why prices rose. Supply and demand curves, etc.
I am not sure that I agree there is actually a difference. At least not as far as the end result of these high prices is on consumer behavior.
Of course, on an ideological level, yes, I agree. Except for high taxes on preprocessed meats. Beef is the biggest contributor by far as environmental impact goes. So I think it makes more sense to target that wholesale. Effectively, most damage meat does to the environment is already done before slaughter, so it doesn't make sense to me to target (pre)processed meats.
What do you mean about consumer behavior, though? At the moment folks are looking for more affordable sources of meat, like the $1/2/3 menus at McDonald's. I haven't seen a thing showing that the average person is eating less meat.
I'd rather see that extra profit going toward teaching people how to eat differently. When my brother turned vegetarian my mom took him to a psych saying he was anorexic. A lot of people don't know how to eat without meat as the primary focus.
It might be wishful thinking on my part. But given that, at least in this part of the world, you regularly do see articles about eating less meat or a meat free day. I didn't think it to be too far-fetched.
No argument from me there. I am by no means trying to imply that the current situation is the best outcome we can wish for or anything like that.
But if it does push people to actually explore eating less meat, that would still be a benefit. And again, I might have assumed more general knowledge from people.
When my sister turned vegetarian, my mom quickly adjusted and cooked meals that could go well with or without meat, and often also made fully vegetarian meals for all of us.
Which is a perspective which might have colored my reply here.
I'm guessing this has a lot to do with environment. I lived in a very small town in the Midwest growing up. Many of the people in the area were dairy farmers, cows were incredibly important to the local economy.
Name the top first-level consumer of beef and chicken in the world.
McDonalds. 1.9 billion lbs of beef, Putting tarrifs in place at that juncture keeps 'cook at home' costs resonable, while putting a higher floor on profitability for industrial meat production.
You get McDonalds to abandon beef, and greenhouse emissions fall drastically. Wouldn't really be able to tell either.
I highly doubt that the amount of meat consumed at McDonalds is bigger or even close to the consumption of meat in general.
I get that you have beef with McDonalds (pun intended), but at the point you are talking about I feel like we are entering a fast food in general discussion. Not to mention that it also comes dangerously close to a logical fallacy, where you hyper focus on one thing as the source of all evil and trouble. Which simply isn't how all of this works, you can't solve this by shutting down one company.
According to this source:
That is one company. I'd like to see what it looks like when all the fast food places are totalled up.
By putting the taxes at the point I suggested, it puts upward price pressure at the producer level, while allowing consumers to access the raw material 'at cost,' incentivizing home preparation of meals which are also substantially healthier. It's a two-for-one sin tax.
Half of the reason meat consumption in the USA is so high is because fast food is dis-proportionally cheap, and they are meat-heavy foods.
While I agree, I very much feel that you are having a different discussion from mine. This would make some home prepared meals cheaper, that much is true. It wouldn't reduce meat consumption that much, though. It would just shift the meat consumption from broiler breed chickens in McDonalds to broiler breed chickens at home.
Yup, that we are in agreement over. Half the reason meat heavy fast food can be so cheap is that meat is also very cheap. While I think it is also good to discourage fast food consumption, I again don't think it will affect meat consumption.
Gotcha. But the reason I think it will curb consumption, is that if the cheapest-available fast foods are no longer meat based, it puts the thumb on the scale between "do I opt for fast and cheap, or do I want meat?" More people than not will opt for that first option, at least far more frequently than they do now where the cost/calorie still is very heavily in favor of the value menu burger.
The bag of Chicken Nuggets at the grocer now costs $20 instead of $10, the ICan'tBelieveItsNotChicken Nuggets at $15 now look much better.
You pair that with meat import tariffs (reducing desirability to produce meat for global export), you've driven up cost of meat somewhat organically. You also crank up the regulating dials to insure more ethical and sustainable farming, and meat costs go up dramatically, while insuring that for people whom are still eating meat, the most affordable option is also the healthiest. It makes the 'expensive meat' pill easier to swallow if you can still make a burger for yourself for < $10 while buying one from McDonalds costs $20.
Seperately, chickens are an utterly critical part of a food chain that relies on less poison. Nature's pesticide. They taste better when they've been eating all the pests out of the fields.
Anecdotally, I'd buy the Impossible variant at Burger King 100% of the time if it cost $2 less than the beef equivalent (since I don't really eat McDs). If we can't lower the costs of meat-alternatives, we drive up the cost of meat until the alternatives are better options.
PS - tagging @Minori because this reply also answers their question about how it adjusts consumer behavior.
I'm not in favor of the meat industry making more money. But I do agree that people need to stop eating so much meat. Honestly I don't believe vegetarianism/veganism has been the most productive way to reduce America's over-consumption of meat. People need to promote meat reduction, not absolute rules that you must follow for the rest of your life.
I was able to reduce my meat consumption by 90-95% without any effect on my social life or health. I basically only eat meat for special occasions (my birthday, Christmas, etc.) or for social events where there's no other good option (like when a friend wants to share a special recipe with me). Otherwise I'm just eating a lot of beans, nuts, dairy, fruits, pasta and salads. I'm able to put on muscle with this diet without any trouble. My food tastes really good and I feel good. Essentially, nothing of consequence has been lost. It's just a different diet and now I'm not contributing as much to the destruction of the environment that I and other humans need to live in.
Agreed, that is also why I put the asterisks in my comment as I don't think it is productive to try to convert people wholesale when incremental steps can be much easier to achieve.
"Meatless Mondays" and the like work really well even for those that don't care about vegetarianism. Historically, people didn't eat meat every day, much less every meal.
I agree with this, not so much because I believe in the ethics and morality of veganism, but because there are so many negative health and environmental effects associated with them. For years there have been more and more academic papers being published about the negative health effects of beef, but I have heard people pointing to them saying things like "So what if cars cause cancer? Bacon causes cancer." But maybe instead of giving the rubber stamp to things that can kill us, why don't we all just not get cancer?
Honestly, I'm tired of that handwaving used everywhere. People don't care about air quality enough, when air quality can be so bad in some places that it's taking years of life out of the average lifespan in those areas. The reason why our environment is getting so inhospitable is because of the actions of our collective society. So it only makes sense that the only way to fix it is to actively change society for the better. We need to get it into the popular mindset that things like installing solar and phasing out internal combustion engines in cars are not the things that are going to save us, but are part of a whole host of things we will need to change about the way the world works in order to combat climate change.
A bit of of "inside the industry" folklore:
There is a turn coming; it's visible in the quarterly financial prints. How much of prices is due to price fixing? I couldn't say, maybe I'm idealistic but I think the industry has been a bit spooked by the accusations and if it's happening it (hopefully) isn't large scale.
lawsuit goes after statistics company for high meat prices, claims collusion
Yeah, they colluded to fix bread forever in Canada, of course other food item prices are also fixed. I would hope for more legislation
Because working together against the public will always be more lucrative than fighting each other to the floor. If they hold long enough and become big enough, they can even activate the Public Coffers for an extra pay day out of our govts.
Bird flu, fuel tax, climate change, they're all real of course, and push costs up higher. But I'm sure that's not all of it when there's no need to compete.
Haven't the last few years seen a humongous outbreak of bird flu affecting poultry prices? There may also be price-fixing happening, but it seems odd that the article does not mention the bird flu at all.
Yes, though that was more noticeable to me as egg prices rocketing.
I'll come out and say: great time to go vegan then!