Discussion thread on Supermarket prices - are they becoming too high?

geordie_joe

ghanagirl wrote: »

Decline of Argentina's Beef industry.

I fail to see how Argentinas beef industry affects the price of corned beef, considering you said production switched to Brazil 30 years ago.

ghanagirl wrote: »

The Uk's total agricultual land cover 18.5 million hectares.
Argentina's soybean crop covers 24.9 million hectares and is growning by 20% a year.
Brazils soya fields cover 46.8 million hectares.

I don't see, but if you want to quote figures, go find out how many hectares of forest in argentina are being cleared to make way for cattle and soya.

A quote from this site http://www.theargentimes.com/socialissues/environment/beyond-the-amazon-deforestation-in-argentina-/

Following the introduction of the GE crop, milkmen, cattle dealers and other farmers abandoned their work to cultivate soy. Agricultural borders were extended to harvest the crop. Forested land, in areas such as the Great Chaco and the Yungas, was sacrificed.

Since 1998, two years after the introduction of GE soy, the country’s forests have diminished by more than 2.5m hectares – one hectare every two minutes.

That was written in 2008, so 10 years after 1998, lets do maths. 10 x 2.5m hectares is 25m hectares. You say Argentina's soya beans cover 24.9m hectares. So, the area covered by soya matches that of the forest that was cleared to grow soya.

So where is the soya that you refer to here

ghanagirl wrote: »

Cattle are now factory fed because their grazing area's have been planted with soya

ghanagirl wrote: »

In the articles below you can read that EU quota's have slashed the amount of Meat allowed to be exported to the EU from Brazil.
http://www.thecattlesite.com/news/31222/brazilian-mission-to-unlock-eu-beef-negotiations

Actually that's not true. The EU, in Policy 61 slashed the number of farms that are allowed to export meat to the EU, there is no restriction on the amount of meat. Try actually reading the links you post.

More importantly, it only applies to "meat", as in fresh meat (which may be frozen). It does not apply to "Meat Products" such as canned beef, burgers etc.

You should be able to work it out for yourself, think about it.

2007 - The EU begin to conciser restricting 'meat' imports from Brazil
2007 - Marfrig Group begin selling shares to raise money
2008 - EU Resticts the number of farms allowed to expor meat to theEU
2008 - Marfrig Group begin buying canning factories, even ones that had been closed for 29 years. and building new ones. It grows so big it becomes "3rd Largest producer of beef meat products in the world"
And it's still buying

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/consumer_goods/article4200982.ece

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-15/marfrig-buys-keystone-to-become-mcdonald-s-supplier-update2-.html

Why do all that when the EU have restricted the meat it can send to the EU? because "meat" doesn't include "Meat Products" it can send as much meat products as it wants.

It may be restricted in the number of joints it can export, but not if it turns the meat into products such as corned beef and burgers. That is the reason it is buying up MacDonalds meat suppliers. If it turns the beef into burgers it can export as much as it wants, and MacD is a pretty big customer to have.

All that has happened is the EU have said "Our farmers are not happy with your cheap beef coming into the EU, so we are going to restrict the amount of fresh meat you export to us. But not meat products, nudge nudge wink wink". And the Brazilians replied "OK, we'll turn the beef into a meat products before we export it to the EU".

There has been no reduction in the amount of corned beef Brazil exports to the EU, so that can't be the reason for the increase in price.

I believe it is caused by the Marfrig Group trying to recoup the money it invested in increasing it's corned beef production and other "meat products" production.

ghanagirl wrote: »

When was the last time you saw 20 combine harvesters side by side bringing in a harvest
http://nimg.sulekha.com/business/original700/brazil-soybean-harvest-2010-4-1-11-41-47.jpg

Again, you have misunderstood. So you have a picture of soya in Brazil, and think that the cattle grass must have been ploughed up to make room for it.

Try doing a google search for "deforestation + brazil" and you will find that the Brazillian are cutting down rain forests to make way for more cattle and soya. They are growing soya, but they are also expanding their cattle farms too, and using rain forest land to do it.

"After cattle ranching, soybeans are the main driver of Amazon destruction," said Roberto Smeraldi of Friends of the Earth Brazil.

Just so you don't get confused about what I think, I'll tell you.

I don't think you made anything up, but I do think you were misled by some web sites, and read about "meat" restrictions and thought it meant "all meat".

I don't blame you for that, if you just read the headlines, such as "EU restricts Brazilian meat" it would be easy to think that included meat products such as corned beef. But when you look at the whole picture and see the Brazilians building new corned beef factories, and buying up old ones that are closed, and putting them back into production. You see that there is obviously no restrictions on the exporting of "meat products" and the Brazilians are simply increasing there production to make up for the fall in 'fresh meat' exports.

Yanqui_Mike

Ghana Girl ...I think I'm in love!

I'm a rancher in Argentina and if there is anything incorrect in your posts I didn´t notice it.

It´s getting worse everyday. Beef prices here are skyrocketing both on the hoof and in the supermarket. Argentines are reducing their consumption to the point that we´ll probably lose our title as the biggest beef eaters in the world. By my lights, it is true that something less than half of all beef produced here is now grass-fed.

The causes are many and occurred almost simultaneously.

#1. 3 or 4 years of severe drought stressed the national herd after years of low beef prices (about 3 pesos per kilo. )

#2. The sharp rise of grain prices led large corporations to seek out more acreage for crops. These companies gave ranchers large sums, in advance, in US dollars for the right to bring their equipment in and plow-up pastures... at no risk to the rancher. It was irresistible.

#3. As soon as beef prices began rise in the supermercados, the current administration placed price controls on what could be charged to the consumer.

#4. The lure of grain continued and more ranchers plowed under their best wintering pastures. Feedlot operations multiplied ...but the promised subsidies to their operators were hit and miss and finally have been withdrawn. Many feedlot operators are now deeply in debt with no hope of ever receiving their promised subsidy checks.

#5. Prices for beef on the hoof doubled from historic levels. Price controls were largely ignored and consumer prices began to depress local appetites for the traditional staple. Beef eating has declined 30% since March of last year. Prices for cattle on the hoof increased further ...but supply was low as ranchers with grain income no longer feel the push to sell their remaining cattle and are, to be fair, not merely "holding out" but are trying to rebuild their herds in light of higher profitability.

#6. Toward keeping consumer beef prices as low as possible until election day, export permits to meatpackers were reduced then finally withdrawn in the hope that the measure would keep domestic supply as high as possible. Meatpackers, deprived of lucrative export revenue, began to close slaughterhouses. Once the largest beef exporter on earth, Argentina now exports virtually nothing ...including cuts like canned corned beef, something that was never even subject to export restrictions.

Please keep in touch! The decline of one of the world's great breadbaskets is a great story.

Mike

Yanqui_Mike

Mr. Geordie Joe!

I´ve enjoyed your posts as well. Deforestation is a worldwide problem. More so in Brazil than Argentina ...mostly because they simply have more forests than we do.

But the big problem here in Argentina vis a vis beef has been the conversion of prime "wintering" pastures to grain. Those pastures were the best that Argentina had to offer. So rich were they that cattle could find nourishing grass all during our admittedly mild winters. These were the lands most suited to conversion to grain.

Our ranch has always been a cow-calf operation; we don´t have the rich pastures that allow cattle to reach full market weight. Our clients have always been the winterers.

Two years ago, we noticed that all of our traditional, winterer, buyers had completely disappeared from the auctions. There were only the feedlot operators and some slaughterhouses.

Now with no winterers ...and with both the feedlots and slaughterhouses in bad shape... it looks like we´ll be feeding ourselves beef until we can no longer afford to eat it.

Great post! I hope to hear more from you,
Mike

peterx

Netto had loads today 95p Tulip brand,the big size 340g i think. Bought two not tried yet.

UnderPressure

geordie_joe wrote: »

This may be true, I don't know.



This is not true. Well there may be dozens of countries who boycott Argentine products because of the Falklands War, but this has nothing to do with corned beef.

I do remember the shops taking corned beef off the shelves when Argentina invaded the Falklands, but this was a misguided act. The UK had not imported corned beef from Argentina since 1964. Not officially, just that nobody here would buy/eat it and no company would risk importing it. And I wouldn't be surprised if no other countries imported corned beef from Argentina either.

Not that we ever imported much corned beef from Argentina in the first place, most of it came from Brazil and Uruguay, by a company that named it's corned beef after the town/port the corned beef was canned in and shipped from. Do a google search for "Fray Bentos"





I don't know about Brazil, but this is not true for Argentina. In Argentina cattle is not "fed", it is left to fend for it's self and eat the grass. This is why it is considered to be the best beef in the world.

However, farmers have been slaughtering cattle in Argentina, but not because of the price of feed, they don't buy it. The Argentine government thinks the best way to keep the economy stable is to severely restrict imports and exports. As a result they have put a very high tax on exported beef, as well as restriction as the who you can export it too. This resulted in Argentina having far too much beef, even though people in Argentina eat twice as much beef as people in the USA, there is still far too much beef. The farmers can't sell it in Argentina and they can't export it, so some of them have gone over to making money in other ways, and mostly this has been growing soya. But it has nothing to do with the price of feed.



It's true, shipping prices have gone up, and this year there is a shortage of containers, but the increase in the price of tin is very small compared to the cost of a tin of corned beef.

I think you'll find the real reason for the price of corned beef is because of the Marfrig Group.

In 2007 they "floated on the stock market", issued shares to the public. With the money from those shares they set about a massive expansion of the company. They set out to corner the meat market in south america, and have just about done it.

They acquired a lot of slaughter house and meat canning factories and bought up 39 companies world wide, and are still trying to buy more. They are now the;

3rd Largest producer of beef meat products in the world
2nd Largest producer and exporter of poultry further processed products of Brazil
The largest beef Company in Argentina
The largest poultry products processor in UK
The largest private Company in Uruguay

They are also heavily in debt (they owe 4.4 times more than they earn) and have a large number of shareholders demanding a return on their investment. One way they are increasing their income is by increasing the price of corned beef.

Nothing to add really just a pat on the back for joe

You are a clever chappy on the QT

And I love the tone of your posts, even though you only partly agreed with this post you were respectful and dare I say nice in the way you replied well done you

There are a few thousand MSE'rs that could take a leaf out of your book

ANyhow enough of all that just thought I would say something nice as well

geordie_joe

UnderPressure wrote: »

Nothing to add really just a pat on the back for joe

You are a clever chappy on the QT

And I love the tone of your posts, even though you only partly agreed with this post you were respectful and dare I say nice in the way you replied well done you

There are a few thousand MSE'rs that could take a leaf out of your book

ANyhow enough of all that just thought I would say something nice as well

Thank you, I'm not really clever, I just don't believe everything I read and like to check things out.

I'm glad you read my post in the manner it was written., sometimes people read my posts and think I am being offensive or argumentative. I am not, but as I rarely use smilies it can be easy to misinterpret the manner of my posts.

geordie_joe

Yanqui_Mike wrote: »

Mr. Geordie Joe!

Great post! I hope to hear more from you,
Mike

Thanks for your posts, but you have not addressed the question the thread is about

Why has the price of Brazilian corned beef gone up so much?

Wolfhound

xanthe wrote: »

Went to Lidl last Thursday. Avocado slashed from 50p to 49p!

I'm gutted, I missed that

Yanqui_Mike

You're right. I guess that's not my bailiwick. I will say, however, that removing Argentine production from that commodity could not have helped keep the price down.

Ag policies here were only meant to be applied to fresh meat exports ...but the meltdown has been such that slaughterhouses have reduced their total output thus affecting all parts and uses of the animal.

You have great prices in the UK! I can buy tinned corned beef as cheaply as you guys!

Cheers,
Mike

ghanagirl

I'm no expert but corned beef is very popular in ghana and i send it to my family back in ghana plus various other tin produce and packaged food.

The reason we do this is because the UK's hygene and product laws are very strict so compared to things available for import to africa they are 1000 times better i kid you not.

Supermarket cheap soap and toothpaste may be lower quality in the uk but a thousand times better than available in Ghana.