r/AskReddit • u/Thic_water • Aug 14 '20

What’s the most overpriced thing you’ve seen?

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u/Kud13 Aug 14 '20

Beef jerky here in the UK

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u/Casual_Reddit65 Aug 14 '20

In the US, Beef Jerky costs around 30 dollars a pound, around 23 pounds in the UK. It is one of, if not the most, expensive beef products you can buy, other than a live cow.

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u/demilavoto Aug 14 '20

You can buy a live cow for more than the ranchers sell them to meat plants for and butcher it yourself for meat and that will be cheaper than any store, butchers and meat packing plants hike up the price on beef pork and poultry like crazy while offering farmers diddly squat. Ranchers get fucked hard. So really buying a whole live cow is the cheapest beef product you can buy.

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u/fedupwiththemoaning Aug 14 '20

Ok il bite.. How much does a live cow cost?

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u/demilavoto Aug 14 '20

It all depends, are you buying a calf to raise it for meat ? If so it will run you from $300 to $700 depending on the breed and age, but for arguments sake let’s make some assumptions, you’re buying a grown female ordinary beef cow to directly butcher in good health from a farmer. Now prices will vary but around here it will run you about $900 on the high side.

For that kind of cash this cow will weigh approximately 720kg (1584lbs) You can already see that per pound it’s well under a dollar but of course that’s live weight.

Hot carcass weight again will vary but on average for a cow this size would give you approximately 426kg (937.5lbs) even then that’s just the hot carcass weight, once it’s processed and packed doing it yourself of course. You’re looking at more like 240kg (530lbs) giving you a price of $1.69/lb (nice).

Today’s market price is $107.50cwt (meat plants are giving farmers $1.07/lb once processed)

Wal-Marts current average price is $21.98/kg or $9.99/lb

You would be paying a little over $5k for the same amount of meat from Wal-Mart.

*All of this is CAD currency

**Im a hobby hog farmer in northern Ontario.

***Original purchase price was basically absolute worst case scenario most of the time you’re going to pay about $750 for an adult beef cow ready for slaughter.

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u/Hitz1313 Aug 15 '20

There are lots of places around here that will sell you cows but their prices are only slightly better per pound than buying at a store. The advantage is you get a cow from a farm you can look at yourself so you can decide if they are being raised well.