Meat prices increase per quarter in Australia 2017-2023 – & why you pay so much for REAL DOG TREATS.

This is a companion piece to the previous article we wrote on meat prices in Australia for Healthy Dog treats. It goes a long way to explaining why meat prices are so high for human consumption, and also in the dog treat market.

In that article we saw that about HALF of our BEEF is exported each year!

The beef demand has stayed relatively constant. That is because the production allocation and general human population growth is closely balanced by the decline in beef consumption per person.

However, even with alleged suppressed export prices due to global competition, Australian producers are still exporting HALF of what they grow in Australia. If the prices were so bad, you would almost wonder why they are selling it overseas?

This conundrum begs the question of: why Australians have been paying massive retail price increases for meat in general in Australia.  Considering that we produce so much excess to export.

This increase in price for human ‘meat consumption’ is paralleled with the increase in retail beef treat prices. In fact, almost all meat-based dog treat prices.

We know that meat is the major important ingredient that is too low in most commercial dog food, but the big dog food brands continue to convince dog and cat owners that it’s not as important as the carbs and grains they add.  It is this misinformation that has made it hard for the average dog owner to understand the vital value of essential amino acid (absolute amounts and high bio availability) for companion dogs in Australia.

To give a clearer view of how much the retail prices have increased in Australia (and following on from the previous article) we took ABS data from 2017 to 2023 and have graphed it for all the major meat group prices per Year and per quarter.

For comparison, CPI or consumer price index is an overall average of price increases in Australia for all goods, so acts as the average benchmark. Typically, the annual increase in all goods rarely increases above 3%.

Unless an industry has specific price input increases in its creation of a product, that all other industries don’t have, the quarterly value of retail price increases for meat should be similar to the CPI increase.

Since meat is a bedrock of many people diet, it massively effects the cost-of-living crisis pressures on the majority of the population.  We showed retail price increases in the previous blog but we averaged the value of each year of data so that a long-time line graph would be easier to view.

The reality of percentage price increases is that each one (quarterly data) is cumulative. So a 3% increase in a quarter might not seem like much, but FOUR consecutive 3% quarterly price increases means a 12% yearly price increase, which is typically well above most people’s wage increases.

The data in the graph below demonstrates again, that two of the major food groups that are exported in Australia – ‘BEEF & veal’,   plus  ‘Lamb & Goat’, tend to show the largest price increases in many of the quarterly reporting periods between 2017 and 2023.

Retail Meat Price increases by quarter in Australia 2017-2023

For comparison, the graph BELOW is the same Australian MEAT Retail price category increases, but the data points are shown as YEARLY averages, rather than quarterly averages as shown above.

They are for the same years between 2017 and 2023.

The yearly chart makes it much clearer how the beef price increased between 2017 and 2023 (with a single price correction in 2023).

Retail Meat Price increases by YEAR in Australia 2017-2023

Analysis of meat price graph (QUARTERLY Retail price percentage VALUES) in Australia 2017 – 2023

In many meat industries, exports fell during the global pandemic as many exports were temporarily suspended or reduced.

But let’s look at what the Beef retail prices in Australia have been doing since 2017.

While The CPI quarterly value has usually hovered around 1% until about 2021 when it started edging up to 2%, by about 2022 between then and the end of 2022 it was hitting about 2.5 % per quarter (which means that the overall yearly value CPI value was closer to 10% in total.

Meanwhile Beef from a dip in June 2020 rose to over 3% in Sept 2020 quarter, and for the next year increased to over 5% in the March and June 2021 quarters. That means about a 16% increase in that one-year period. Well above the CPI increase for that year.

You can also see that there was similar ramping up beef price periods in 2018 and the end of 2020.

These three, protracted quarterly price increases typically lasting at least half a year each, are was resulted in the massive retail price increase in beef.

The only way of correcting the quarterly price increase cumulative effect is if a price has a sustained decrease in price for several quarters in a row of a similar negative value. Beef mostly stayed positive price increases except for June 2018 ( -2.5%) and -1% in June 2020.  But these decreases were only small and for one quarter each.

And that is what has led to such a large baseline for retail pricing of beef in Australia. the THREE large sustained price increased over several quarters and two small price decreases for a single quarter.

March 2022 was a second quarter in price increases for meat in Australia. Beef price increases peaked at 12% over the three months, Lamb & goat peaked at 9% and poultry peaked at about 5.5%.

What about the retail price decreases in Beef and Lamb mid-2022 to dec 2023?

As per the previous analysis discussion, a few months of minor price decreases for any meat category off a huge base will take a LONG time to undo the damage that the previous 5 years of rampant price increases over successive quarters have caused.

It is true that like any stock in the stock market, anything can happen.  But the previous ten years (see previous article) suggests that this is the calm before the storm for future meat price increases.

There are no major price security laws in Australia limiting the export of meats.  That basically means corporations are free to sell off all of our meat if they wanted to, and could withstand any pressures that brave independent politicians could exert.

What about the retail price decreases in Lamb & Goat mid-2022 to dec 2023?

Different corporations specialise in different livestock. And within each meat industry there are low quality meats and high-quality meats that attract different export prices.

We haven’t analysed the lamb and goat industries to the extent we have looked at beef prices, but do know that they are one of Australia’s largest meat export groups, with the aim of massively expanding further.

While not the same quarterly growth as beef, you will see that our second largest meat export group (lamb and goat) – are still mostly experiencing the second highest quarterly retail price increases in Australia.

And while that could be coincidence, with the kind of money involved, we feel that is unlikely.

‘Lamb & goats’ biggest quarterly price increase was back in dec 2018 when it peaked at over 7% for a single quarter. In sep 2019, mar 2020, Mar 2021 you will also see that each of those quarters peaked price increases over 3% for the quarter.  This is still around FOUR times the average CPI increase in a regular quarter.

‘Lamb and goats’ retail prices had a slump in Dec 2020 ( -3%),  then saw its largest peak over the last 8 years of 9% in the March 2020 quarter, the same quarter that Beef peaked at 12%.

Since June 2022, ‘lamb and goat’ have had mostly negative price corrections.  But if you have tried to buy a rack of lamb in the supermarket lately, you will realise what a massive price baseline caused by the previous 7 years has had on the price we still pay in late 2024.

CONCLUSIONS

This article wasn’t so much about an expose of the meat industry in Australia, we did that in the last article.

It was about looking at the most recent 6 years of retail price increases for the major meat groups, in more fine detail.

We looked at Quarterly price increases as well as yearly, so that you can better see how the quarterly increases contribute to the yearly retail price increases.

This article reconfirms that the yearly averages we used in the previous article, are backed up by regular quarterly price increases in the meat industry in Australia, particularly in ‘beef’ and ‘lamb’. Not just random single quarters.

It also shows how the specific meat Marketing associations spin might grab onto one quarter of meat price decreases suggesting all is fine. Or how meat now is suddenly affordable. But that headline purposely forgets to mention the massive baseline caused by previous sustained quarterly price increases.  The kind of increases that would take an equally deep and long cut in retail prices to normalise the meat values back to the average CPI values.

As mentioned at the start of this article, anytime there is a price increase in the retail cost of meat for human consumption, there is at least an equal increase in the retail prices of meat-based dog treats.

For those owners who rely on commercial dog food, the best most dog owners can expect to get in their packets is 30 – 40% MDM (mechanically deboned meat) that is shredded off the bone once the good cuts have gone overseas or to restaurants in Australia.

The value of getting more high-quality proteins into your dog, in a format where you can see the grain in the meat (meaning that its WHOLE muscle meat cut jerkies), means you know what you are buying.

Because at the end of the day, ANY amount of quality meat (and offal) added to your dog’s diet, is providing exceptional health boosts.  The very reason why dog food companies only talk about the virtues of plant grains, and NEVER about the non-existent dangers of your do having more meat.  That is, because dogs only need MORE meat, not less.

If you need a reminder of the incredibly large absolute retail price increases in Beef that have been caused by these ‘small’ percentage price increases ….  then here is that graph again …

Retail BEEF meat prices in Australia (2000