Question on prices

[Laripu]

Sausage its typically made out of the cheapest meat, so it's always good for home economics.

But I don't understand why prices differ by animal. Where I live, deboned chicken thighs are dirt cheap, and they make the kind of chicken sausage my wife likes best. That's the cheapest meat available here.

Next up is pork, a bit higher in price. Beef, even cheap beef, is more expensive. Finally, lamb, which I love, is almost prohibitive in price. I would make merguez more often if I could get good lamb for less.

Discounting differences in cut, I think we can say, at least in America, that:

Chicken < Pork < Beef < Lamb.

Why is that? Does it cost that much more to raise a cow than a pig?

[BriCan]

Does it cost that much more to raise a cow than a pig?

You have hit the nail on the head so to speak, their are a few other underlying factors as well

[Laripu]

Does it cost that much more to raise a cow than a pig?

You have hit the nail on the head so to speak, their are a few other underlying factors as well

Yes, supply and demand, of course.

But you'd think that with low demand for lamb, the price should also be lower...but I guess the supply is also low.

But the demand for chicken is astronomical...I'd think the price should be higher.

Aaaaarghh!! Too many variables! Too much information! Brain melting! Must eat sandwich!

[Thewitt]

In the US, lamb is a specialty meat, priced as such. Few suppliers and limited markets. Lamb is not so outrageously priced in many other countries.

Chicken is mass produced by huge industrial farm complexes that would completely boggle your mind if you were to visit one. Though many of us would not consider the conditions humane, the reality is consumer demand for quantity and price have driven the industry to these giant factory farms.

To complicate things in the US, these prices are set in a large part by commodity traders as well, not direct consumers, so supply and demand has a slightly different angle than you setting local prices for your hand made sausages.

[Laripu]

My hands made sausages are free...to my wife and visitors...and no-one else gets top east them.

I see you're in Malaysia. I love Malay food (when it's cooked by ethnic Malay, not Chinese). Tamarind, galangal, belacan, lemon grass, chili...and I'm in heaven. But dammit, no Malay restaurants around here.

[Thewitt]

I make a nice satay sausage, now sold in several local food stalls

[yotmon]

Hi Laripu, when you say that lamb is expensive over there, what kind of prices are you talking ? Over here in England at this time of year, you can buy a carcass for around £4.10 per kilo, but supermarket prices can be anything from £10 a kilo for Leg of Lamb, up to £16.00 for loin chops. How does that convert to Florida prices.

[Laripu]

Hi Laripu, when you say that lamb is expensive over there, what kind of prices are you talking ? Over here in England at this time of year, you can buy a carcass for around £4.10 per kilo, but supermarket prices can be anything from £10 a kilo for Leg of Lamb, up to £16.00 for loin chops. How does that convert to Florida prices.

You're making me work, doing a conversion.

Like with anything else in the UK, I expect they make you pay more....except maybe for lamb.

The prices below are for the kind of meat you'd put in sausages: cheap and fatty.

Boneless chicken thighs: $1.29/lb =£2.09/kg
Pork shoulder: $2.39/lb= £3.87/kg.
Ground chuck beef: $3.19/lb = £5.17/kg
Lamb: $6.99/lb = £11.32/kg

Leg of lamb would be considerably more.

[wheels]

It's easier for me to post a link, rather than the prices I have to pay. These prices are not 'trade', anyone can go into the shop and buy:

http://www.joseph-morris.co.uk/pdf/meatlist.pdf

Phil

[Dogfish]

I'd suggest that meat (and prices in general) are only worth what you're willing to pay for them and that much of the time if you go outside established channels, meat gets way cheaper. So I pull up Tampa Craiglist and look for livestock and I find six month old pigs for $60 and Katahdin sheep for $150. Local classifieds often have the best prices but there's usually work embedded in the deal -- but a Katahdin could be done with a knife, a .22, a cooler full of ice, and a saw in an hour or two. Half the time you pull up the concept with a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant and their eyes light up 'cause they get to eat meat that tastes like home -- then just split the work.

I've got beef for free or next to it by slaughtering 'spare' bulls, my pork is usually around $.25 per lb; I usually don't buy lamb, chickens are often free because of this whole foodie thing -- they dump them when they figure out you can't keep chickens and travel. Horses often go for pennies on the dollar. Young male calves often $50 or so but you need to castrate and raise them unless you're going to eat veal. "Ethnic" populations can drive prices up; around Calgary with its huge Muslim population, a butcher lamb is about $275; Chinese-style pork (pork raised on food slop and foraging) is also expensive. Point being though is a few dollars, a gun, a sharp knife, and Youtube go a long way to making meat cheap.

So long as you go to people who are selling meat in order to make money instead of where they're stemming losses, it'll cost a lot. Dry or savage sows are cheap. Boars often get slaughtered and buried. Dairy farms are full of beefs that get sold off for next to nothing. Wild pigs in Florida I'd be willing to bet are a dime a dozen in some places. Animals without ear tags (at least in Canada) can't even be brought to a slaughterhouse...so the price drops again. Meantime all you need is an ear tag kit, punch in the tags, and you can drive them right up, have them inspected, possibly even sell the results. There's usually a cheap local protein, at least what I've found; the key is finding it then maxing it out.

[yotmon]

Hi Dogfish, an interesting way of looking at meat supplies. I was talking to an old farmer friend that I hadn't seen in a while and a third person was mentioned that I knew to have pigs 25 years ago. Turns out he's now a judge at the county fairs and breeds/shows Saddlebacks and Welsh pigs. Not all of them will turn out good enough to show, so most will have to go down the meat trade route. I'm expecting them to be a bit older and a bit more fattier which I'm sure will bring the price down as opposed to the quality. There will also be 'retired' sows from his herd that will be perfect for sausage - can't wait to meet up with him !

Ste.

[funksteruk2]

It's easier for me to post a link, rather than the prices I have to pay. These prices are not 'trade', anyone can go into the shop and buy:

http://www.joseph-morris.co.uk/pdf/meatlist.pdf

Phil

do these deliver Wheels?

[Snags]

Here in Australia
Pork can be $6 a kilo (shoulder)
Chook is at least $10 a kilo (boned breast or thigh)
Beef can be $8 a kilo (bulk pack rump)
Lamb can be $9 a kilo (leg)

seems our chooks are dear in comparison to other meat.

[Laripu]

Dogfish, those are interesting ideas for someone with the means to do what you suggested, but I'm just a hobbyist making 5 lb batches. I don't have the room to store huge carcasses. I don't have a gun with which I could slaughter an animal. And while I don't mind working with meat, I'm not sure I could look an animal in the face and then kill it. Not from any moral objections - just from a weakness of resolve.

Since I'm making two 5lb batches of different meat at a time, to feed only myself and my wife (and we don't want to eat sausage every day), I'm pretty much limited to my local groceries and what they have on sale. I get chicken at what I consider an excellent price at a local Sam's Club. Sometimes they have appropriate beef available too. I've bought pork at my regular grocery, on sale. The only place I found lamb in quantity that was good for sausage was at a Pakistani grocery, that was attached to a restaurant owned by the same man. I will look for a different source.

[Dogfish]

Yeah for sure; I didn't mean it to be a slap down or anything. In small batches it's usually just cheaper to buy at the store. Another person worth contacting would be custom butchers.