Meatpackers' Costs for Fresh Beef and Pork

Donald B. Agnew

No 320744, Miscellaneous Publications from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

Abstract: How much do meatpackers' services cost for Choice beef and fresh pork? How are costs of packers' services allocated among labor, packaging materials, grading services, buying and selling, and operating overhead? How do costs and services for beef compare with those for pork? And how do meatpackers' costs compare with their price spreads for beef and pork? Recent surveys of costs of a selected group of commercial-scale meatpackers provided some answers to these questions. Reporting packers were located in the Eastern and Western Cornbelt and in the Southeast and the Southwest. Records used in the beef cost analysis were from packers slaughtering mostly steers and heifers. Data from packers slaughtering medium-weight hogs and cutting hog carcasses into fresh pork were included in the pork analysis. Non-reporting packers may have incurred different selling, shipping and handling costs, depending on the distances between their plants and major distribution centers, differing volumes of output, and the method of selling.

Keywords: Labor and Human Capital; Livestock Production/Industries; Marketing; Production Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10
Date: 1965-08
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/320744/files/ERS-254.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uersmp:320744

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.320744

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Miscellaneous Publications from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().