Cold Weather Drives Beef Prices Up

SUPERIOR - The cold weather has driven up the cost of beef for a couple of different reasons and just like with propane, local businesses say they're feeling the pinch.

Superior Meats is a premier spot for picking up steaks, brats, and chops but due to bad weather, they've recently had to raise prices on some of their items.

Mike Cragin of Superior Meats said, "about two years ago there was a drought in the southwest, so the ranchers had to sell off a lot of their cattle.

So that created a shortage today.

And between that and the bad weather in the Midwest, having a hard time getting their cattle to the market, and then because Christmas and New Year's fell right in the middle of the week this year that created a short kill week too.

So right now there's a shortage of cattle.

He says he's having to pay twenty cents more per pound for beef.

His bulk bags of ground beef jumped 70 cents in one week.

For families he says buying other meats can be a way to stretch the budget.

"There's value in chicken right now, there's value in pork, but ground beef is still your best value because you can do so much with it."

And to really look for deals the stores are offering.

Superior Meats not only had to pass their prices on to the customer, but to restaurants they supply like the Anchor.

Manager of the Anchor, Bean Prettie said,"We raised our prices last week. We had to raise them a quarter a piece because hamburger went up 75 cents a pound."

For the Anchor this led to additional costs.

"We also had to go and spend a number of hundreds of dollars on new menus."

But the increase in prices didn't slow down their lunch time rush at all.

Die hard fans said the increase wouldn't stop them from dining there.

Joe Penny said, "You go to these places and they try to charge you these burgers for stuff that's not even hamburger at these fast food places. This is the best burger in Duluth and Superior as far as I figure."

The Anchor said they lost a good bit of money the week ground beef went up, so they only raised the price enough to cover their costs.

Mike at Superior Meats said a good way to adjust to the price increase is to buy in bulk, like purchasing one of their meat bundles.

And they do a sale every Wednesday for ground beef so always look out for that.