"Cdonahey41" > wrote in message
...
> The price went way up before the mad cow problems/ Since there is lot of
beef
> that can no longer be exported, this should indicate the price of beef
will go
> down. You know greater supply, lower price kind of reasoning. I just
paid
> $3.29 for ground chuck recently.
>
> Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed? I presume people
have
> been buying less, and would buy more if the price went down.


Your thinking is right on the money but I believe this is too early to see
any dramatic price changes from the fallout over mad cow disease,
particularly at the retail level now.

There is a lot of uncertainty over just how firm and how permanent the
import bans on U.S. beef by other countries are going to remain. If the
absence of exports results in an oversupply, beef prices could be expected
to fall. OTOH if domestic consumption of beef continues to climb, the
growing demand here could absorb a lot of the the beef supply that now goes
to foreign countries, in which case prices may not fall much.

As soon as the dust begins to settle I look for a major national advertising
campaign by the beef industry to try and boost sales.