Beef Prices Rising in Wisconsin
Annual survey of Wisconsin grocery store prices finds prices up by 4%.
Ground beef. Photo from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (Public domain)
High meat prices mean Wisconsinites are paying more for a summer cookout this year.
The Wisconsin Farm Bureau’s annual survey of grocery store prices found a meal for 10 people cost $69.03, coming in 4 percent higher than in 2024.
The total for 12 food items had been declining in recent years after hitting a record high of $69.74 in 2022. But this year’s total is back up thanks to increased costs for several protein items.
The average cost for 2 pounds of ground beef at Wisconsin stores was $11.85, a nearly 7 percent increase from last year. It’s a steeper increase than seen on the national survey, which increased just over 4 percent.
U.S. beef prices hit a record high in May and aren’t expected to slow down thanks to a short supply of cattle across the country.
Brenda Boetel, agricultural economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, said producers that finish beef cattle, called feeders, have previously struggled with profitability, leading to lower numbers of beef cattle in the U.S.
Recent higher prices have improved their margins, but Boetel said it takes time to build up herds in response. She said producers have to hold more calves back for breeding instead of sending them on to be raised for processing.
“It gets tighter to begin with, before it can grow,” Boetel said. “We’re kind of in that stage right now where we’re starting to see that it’s going to get tighter because we don’t want to put those animals in a feedlot.”
But Boetel said the higher prices haven’t dampened consumer demand for beef, especially now that it’s the summer grilling season. She said that demand is often tied to consumer sentiment about the economy, with consumers willing to pay a little more when they feel financially secure.
“They’re not concerned that they’re not going to have a job tomorrow, so then they can feel safe in buying that beef product,” Boetel said.
Pork also saw higher prices on this year’s survey in Wisconsin, with the price for 3 pounds of pork chops increasing by 4 percent. But nationally, the price of pork fell nearly 9 percent from 2024, reflecting better availability of pork in stores.
Cassie Sonnentag, communications director for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, said the U.S. average cost for a cookout is still higher than the average paid by Wisconsin shoppers.
“A lot of the items included on this are readily available here in Wisconsin and across the Midwest, so that makes that price drive down just a little bit,” she said. “But we’re seeing ourselves kind of come up to that national average in a lot of these different spaces.”
The price of chicken breasts was also up slightly compared to last year, with Wisconsin’s average price coming in more than a dollar more than the national average at $8.94 for 2 pounds.
The cost of chicken and eggs were both elevated at the start of the year due to avian influenza wiping out major producers of birds for meat and eggs. But Sonnentag said the survey results shows consumer prices are coming down.
“That’s taking into account that chicken populations are kind of recovering from avian influenza all across the country,” she said.
A national average for this year’s July Fourth survey was $70.92. The total is 30 cents, or less than 1 percent, lower than last year and still sits about 19 percent higher than the same survey done five years ago.
Higher beef prices increase the cost of a Wisconsin summer cookout was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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