This year’s Top 100 meat and poultry processors report features more billion-dollar companies than ever before, and for the first time, every single company on the list has sales of $100 million or more. Record meat prices apparently did not diminish consumer demand for meat and poultry prices.
Certainly, record protein prices, particularly in the beef segment, helped contribute to that success. Companies that responded to the 2014 Top 100 Report stated that their top concern was that rising meat prices would force consumers to trade down in the protein category or be forced out of the segment entirely. Fortunately, demand does not appear to have been affected, and early reports that protein prices should stabilize or even decrease should only benefit consumers.