A monthly column written for Beef Central by US meat and livestock markets commentator Steve Kay, publisher of US Cattle Buyers Weekly

WALK around any neighborhood today in just about any city in the United States and you will hear and smell steaks and hamburgers sizzling on the grill.

Yes, it’s the start of the annual grilling season when most Americans partake in their favorite food pastime. The US beef complex relies on the grilling season as with balmy weather, May and June are the two strongest months of the year for beef demand.

However, US consumers face record high or near record high beef prices in the grocery store and on most US restaurant menus. Weekend retail meat sales remain slow, a victim of higher energy prices and overall uncertainty by consumers in the current chaotic economic environment, noted analyst Bob Wilson, HedgersEdge.com, in early April.

February is the weakest demand month for beef at retail in the US, but prices ignored this fact by setting new all-time highs during the month. USDA’s All Fresh retail price averaged a record US$9.64 per pound (a measure of overall retail price, including all muscle meat cuts plus trimmings – the equivalent of A$30.30/kg), which was US17c higher than January’s average and US$1.32 or 16 percent higher than in February 2025.

Image: Shutterstock

The USDA Choice grade beef price averaged US$10.12 per pound, versus US$9.93 in January and US$8.64 lb in February 2025. The All Beef price beat the old record of US$9.55 per pound set last December while the Choice price beat the previous record of US$10.08 per pound set last November and December.

The records suggest that retailers increased their prices in February rather than feature beef more aggressively to boost sales volumes. The price for ground beef also set a new record in February, averaging US$6.90 per pound  (equivalent of A$21.70/kg), which was up US93c or 16pc from the previous year. Roasts averaged US$8.93 per pound in February, up US93c or 12pc from last year. Steaks averaged US$14.14 per pound, an increase of $2.29 or 19pc from last year and were the second highest on record behind August 2025, at US$14.32/lb.

Pork cheaper

Conversely, the average retail pork price in February was US$4.90 per pound, which was up only 5c from January and up only 6c from February last year. Since January 2025, the retail pork price has averaged US$4.94 per pound. The February retail composite broiler price was US$2.39 per pound, up a penny from January but the same price as in February 2025. The broiler price has been on a gradual decline since June 2025 when it was US$2.49 per pound, say analysts.

US consumers remain the key to continued strength for the beef market, says Wilson. February retail sales rebounded according to the Commerce Department’s latest report, posting a 0.6pc increase from January when the number was slightly negative. But these sales numbers did not reflect the impact of the military action and war with Iran that began the last day of February.

Luxury and high-priced choices are becoming more difficult to justify. As a caution in this environment, the beef to pork cutout ratio has moved to an all-time high level, he says. Other analysts say there has been some trading down in beef purchases this year to pork and chicken because of price but that the demand for high quality cuts remains strong.

Animal protein in favour

Meanwhile, US meat and poultry sales should get a boost this year as meat and poultry now sits in the center of the food conversation around the U.S. This follows the release in January of the new food pyramid as part of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025-2030. Meat takes a prominent place in the pyramid, and one of the reasons for that is the advocacy work carried out by the Meat Institute, the US meat and poultry industry’s major trade association.

The Institute says it has been in conversation for the past year with the federal government and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr about positioning meat and animal protein front and center in people’s lives.

Julie Anna Potts, the Meat Institute’s president and CEO, discussed how the trade association worked with Kennedy, inviting him to share his perspective at the 2026 Annual Meat Conference and collaborated to get the message of meat out across the country. As the Make America Healthy Again movement continued to broaden, Potts and the Institute saw it as an opportunity to positively promote meat’s many attributes.

“When he became the standard bearer for changing the dialogue on health through what you eat, we thought, this is a great opportunity for meat and poultry to be recognised as the nutrient-dense products that they are,” Potts said after interviewing Kennedy during the Annual Meat Conference.

In other words, many years of advocacy on behalf of meat’s attributes might finally be paying off.

For the first time in many years, the Meat Institute hosted a fly-in to Washington, DC, in September 2025, where they were able to take members of its executive board and some committee members to the White House to meet Secretary Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Moving forward to 2026, Potts said the Meat Institute and others will be part of the conversation on how the dietary guidelines will be implemented in school meals and other areas of the American food system.