• Beef up $3.87, 12.4% – beef is America’s #1 source of protein in sales ($74.3 billion in 2010, 59.6 pounds per capita), but the inventory of cattle has dropped to 92 million, a level last seen 53 years ago.
• Chicken up 3.9%
• Turkey up 5.4%
• Veal up 6.7%
• Pork up 10%

The article also contains some interesting statistics and descriptions of the beef business. In particular, beef producers are blaming rising input costs for the prices they have passed on to consumers:

“‘There’s inflation in everything we buy to run our business,’ said Bill Donald, president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, an advocacy group for beef producers.”

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Food prices may jump as much as 6 percent in 2010, Swanson said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Nov. 25 forecast 3 percent to 4 percent food inflation next year, up from an estimated 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent in 2009.

Producers of cattle, hogs, dairy cows and poultry cut output after a jump in feed costs last year, reducing supplies as demand for meat is rising at home and abroad, Swanson said. Corn, the main source of animal feed, will rally next year because of record demand for grain to make ethanol, he said.

“Protein inflation is going to be much higher than people are anticipating,” Swanson said Dec. 9 in an interview from Minneapolis. “Corn is a proxy for feed costs, and right now the value of all meat and dairy output is below the price of feed on a long-term relative basis.”

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