Why Is Beef Jerky So Expensive Now

Why is beefiness jerky so expensive? Several factors get into the cost of this famous meat treat, simply most of information technology ultimately comes down to water weight. Here is what'southward going on.

The Process Of Making Jerky

Making jerky is a v-step procedure, although different manufacturers have different techniques.

Step ane: Choosing and Slicing

The first step is choosing and slicing the raw meat. Jerky cuts become against the grain, but it's possible to make jerky from well-nigh any whole-muscle cut of lean beef. This is the start signal where beef prices vary, as national beefiness pricing reports prove. The starting raw beef costs for jerky made with rump roast, for example, is less than half the starting toll of a better cut like filet mignon or skirt steak.

In that location are many potential options for making beefiness jerky, and some of them are easier to acquire than others.

Footstep 2: Marinating

The next step in making jerky is marinating. This is nevertheless another point where pricing tin vary, as well, based on the ingredients for a particular recipe. Beefiness jerky requires a sure amount of marinade by volume, but using rarer or college-quality ingredients tin significantly increase the ultimate price of production.

Step three: Laying the Meat

The 3rd stride in production is laying the meat, which means putting it on racks and preparing to cook information technology. Laying the beef requires paying an employee for their time but ultimately has a minimal bear upon on the cost of making jerky.

Stride four: Cooking and Drying

The fourth step is the existent impact on cost. Cooking and drying often happen together when making beef jerky, and it's usually amend if the meat cooks at a low temperature for a long time. However, while it's drying, the beef will lose a lot of its water weight.

Recipes and proportions vary slightly, only an average piece of beefiness will lose at to the lowest degree half its weight in the drying process, and often two-thirds. Functionally, this means 3 pounds of meat becomes one pound of jerky (aforementioned if you are shredding it farther)

This is an obvious problem for manufacturers. Buy 2-3 times as much beef equally y'all want to sell weight-wise.

That means the price of beefiness jerky has to exist high enough to cover not just that lost weight only your company's profits. If you spend $10 a pound for flank steak, you may need to sell at more than $30 a pound to make a profit.

More than anything else, the blazon of meat y'all're buying and the drying process are what affect the price of beef jerky.

The final step in making finished jerky is packaging, which is generally affordable. Beef jerky requires closed packaging for freshness, but across that, your options are pretty open.

What About Exotic Jerky?

Exotic jerky making follows the same procedure, but it has a college base cost than regular beefiness jerky because the ingredients are harder to become. Meats like alligator, ostrich, salmon, trout, yak, bison, elk, moose, bear, and even rattlesnake are more expensive than beef. They certainly will not exist cheap jerky.

Annotation that some types of meat may lose more than or less water than beef in the drying process, affecting the overall cost of production.

Equipment: The Dehydrator

There are plenty of great dehydrators on the market, with options ranging from at-home machines to commercial-level bulk dehydrators. If you're request "why is beef jerky so expensive?" – this is the almost significant secondary consideration beyond the meat and drying.

Specifically, if you're selling hasty, you need to ensure you're making enough money to encompass the toll of buying, operating, and maintaining your dehydrator. Naturally, the more y'all make and sell, the easier information technology is to embrace this toll. Same goes with a proficient jerky slicer.

For at-dwelling jerky makers, a simple dehydrator will probably cost more than $120, and this rarely includes a cooking function. Anywhere lower than this is probably too cheap for what you're trying to do. An oven/dryer combination machine with more space inside will be $600+. Commercial machines will exist several thousand dollars.

Other Factors Affecting The Price Of Beefiness Jerky

The factors above are the principal reasons that jerky is so expensive, simply there are some other considerations to continue in heed that take an bear on.

Cooking and Drying Time

Drying itself is a master driver for cost when making beef jerky, simply drying time also matters. The fourth dimension comes into play on ii levels.

The commencement level is that companies demand to accept someone monitoring the jerky while it's drying. Information technology usually takes at least five hours to make good beef jerky, so companies need to pay at least ane employee during that time. Fortunately, i employee can monitor multiple machines, and so producing beefiness jerky in bulk reduces the cost of needing an employee.

The 2nd reason drying time matters is that it's possible to dehydrate beefiness jerky as well much. If the h2o level goes downwardly also far, the jerky is ruined and no longer a delicious care for. Abode creators can budget for the occasional ruined batch, just commercial companies making hundreds of pounds of jerky at a time would endure a pregnant loss.

Cooking time also involves electricity costs, although these are lower than you might expect. Hasty cooks at a low temperature to ensure the moisture evaporates, and then even large machines employ much less electricity than like-size units that bake bread or other items at higher temperatures.

Inspections

Another factor affecting the toll of beefiness jerky is the cost of inspections and government regulations. Private makers can avoid this, simply companies need to implement unabridged quality-control strategies, complete with third-party testing to ensure compliance with all food safety laws.

Inspection pricing is an acceptable price for businesses producing beefiness hasty in sufficient quantities, but it's big enough that companies besides accept to cistron it into their pricing.

Aircraft Costs

Most manufacturers want to proceed shipping costs as depression as possible, and so they prefer to operate close to beefiness sources. That'southward not e'er possible, though, so companies may demand to pay for shipping meat beyond the country, then over again to ship it out to stores and sell it.

That sounds similar an intimidating price at first, but this isn't as relevant as y'all might think. The reason is that the average price of beef at stores already includes the shipping costs. In that sense, yous could telephone call shipping a hidden cost that jerky manufacturers are already paying.

Nonetheless, large companies may end up paying this separately if they're buying beef in large quantities. Smaller businesses can often partner with a local butcher store that orders and processes the beef, then cuts and prepares it.

Beef Quality

We touched on this earlier. Like shipping, the quality of beef hides in the cost of each cutting of meat a manufacturer buys.

Nonetheless, most beef jerky manufacturers prefer getting more-expensive cuts of beef, and at that place'south a expert reason for this. Low-quality meat produces depression-quality hasty, merely you won't save much on production costs if yous get low-quality beef. Production is essentially a fixed cost per book, with the quality of ingredients being meaningless when calculating it.

Put simply, that means information technology'due south ordinarily better to get good meat and make keen hasty, rather than getting poor beef and making lousy jerky. Customers volition e'er prefer better cuts, and they'll avert brands that are using lower-quality beef.

The result of this market tendency is beef jerky becoming a luxury production. Nobody wants to pay premium pricing for a bad production.

Marinades and Spices

The cost of seasoning beef hasty can vary greatly. Some companies employ elementary recipes with just a few cheap ingredients, while others get rare or exotic spices to create unique flavors.

Mutual spices include table salt, black pepper, onion powder, brown sugar, pepper flakes, paprika, liquid smoke, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, garlic powder, and soy sauce (similar to a brisket rub).

Companies making exotic flavors might add alcohols like rum, diverse citrus juices, or maple syrup.

Marinades tin work with a great variety of flavor combinations, only companies usually prefer simple and common flavors similar teriyaki or pepper. Complex flavors are more common for small-batch products.

Marinating is more complicated than it may seem at first. The ideal marinating time ranges from an hour to almost ii days, depending on the ingredients. Getting a marinade wrong can lead to spoiling the meat, so yous may have to examination recipes carefully to find the all-time way to use them.

The USDA does not recommend reusing marinades. Doing so significantly increases the chances of cantankerous-contamination and bacterial growth that can ultimately ruin hasty. Buying fresh ingredients for marinades thus becomes part of jerky's ongoing costs.

Most companies adopt to marinate their meat in shallow layers and maximize the corporeality of beef the marinade can cover. Wasted space requires more than marinade, which causes significantly higher costs for manufacturers.

Spices are like liquids and other ingredients for marinades. Companies typically use a lot of spices when marinading because as well piddling for the volume means it won't provide plenty season. If you were to measure spices by the loving cup, you lot'd finish up going through them apace.

Some companies avoid this toll entirely by minimizing or avoiding marinades. These often hit the market place as "natural" beef jerky, but it'due south one of the few areas where companies tin can realize significant savings.

Product Volume

Aside from everything else, beefiness jerky is more affordable to make in larger volumes. There are some fixed costs, like the price of meat, drying time, and paying employees to cut and prepare the beef. Yet, cooking and drying take about the aforementioned amount of time whether yous're doing a few pounds or a few hundred pounds.

Essentially, economies of calibration tin can lower the price of producing beefiness jerky. These costs are why small-batch manufacturers e'er have higher prices than large-brand competitors, even if they're starting with the same cut and quality of meat.

The Real Toll Of Beef Jerky

As yous can see from the explanations higher up, many factors affect the actual cost of beef jerky. Looking at prices effectually the land, you lot can see how these costs cistron into the price per ounce.

The nigh affordable jerky is usually around $1 per ounce. Chances are you won't meet anything meaningfully below this, no matter how hard you lot look.

Cheaper beef jerky usually has picayune or no additional flavor to it. Cut out the marinade process reduces production time and the cost of ingredients, offering genuine savings. However, companies volition frequently add a little smoke flavor, even for otherwise-uncomplicated recipes.

Effort online retailers like Oversupply Cow or FarmFoods to find high quality, grass-fed beefiness jerky at low prices.

Beef hasty with mild and simple marinades tend to cost at least $one.50 per ounce. This is where yous'll start to get more flavors and variety in the meat, and so many of the larger manufacturers end up in this range.

Small batch manufacturers usually accuse between $2.50 and $v per ounce. They can't take advantage of the economies of calibration, then they have to price the meat loftier enough to make a turn a profit.

For context, in that location are 16 ounces in a pound of beef. Many companies use Acme Circular cuts for their jerky, which costs a picayune over $5 per pound at the pricing nosotros linked earlier. That'southward about 31 cents per ounce of meat, and then a company selling beef jerky for about $2.50 an ounce is selling it for 7x what they bought it for.

Shopping Smart

So, why is beef jerky so expensive? In that location's a difficult minimum on how much y'all can reduce the price while all the same making a satisfactory product. You lot accept a 2-3x multiplier in costs just from the loss of h2o weight in drying, and that's before expenses similar marinades, employee working hours, and packaging.

You can reduce costs somewhat if you lot buy beef jerky online, peculiarly if y'all purchase enough to qualify for free aircraft programs. Most beef jerky is shelf-stable for at least one year, so you can buy a lot at one time and shop information technology for a long time. If y'all buy directly from manufacturers, you can cutting out middleman markups.

FAQs About Why Beef Hasty Is So Expensive

Here are a few FAQs nigh Why Beef Jerky Is So Expensive.

Why does beefiness hasty toll so much money?

Beefiness jerky is fabricated from whole cuts of meat, so it takes a lot of fourth dimension and endeavour to make. Information technology as well requires a lot of seasoning and special care to preserve. That's why beefiness jerky is ofttimes more expensive than other types of stale meat snacks.

Is it expensive to make beef hasty?

It'southward very expensive at the beginning, since y'all'll need decent tools to make a succulent beef jerky. Also, you'll exist ownership beef, and raw ingredients like spices at full retail prices. You will be making small batches at home, depending on your beef jerky recipe. Like gardening, if you stick with the hobby long-term, you tin bring per-batch costs down then it'south non too expensive. However, you lot volition likely never compete with jerky sold in majority by companies making it at scale.

What is the markup on beef jerky?

The markup on beef jerky is around 37% to 50%. This ways that a $nine bag of jerky commonly goes wholesale for $half dozen. Now, the markup depends on the retailer and their pricing strategy. You will probable simply find 37% markup at online retailers and big grocery stores. The smaller the retailer, the higher their markup since their inventory & capital costs are higher. Gas stations may marker a bag upwards lx% to 100%.

Why is there so little beefiness hasty in a bag?

Beef jerky settles in the bag fifty-fifty more than than chips, it also requires more than space for effective sealing at the beef hasty production facility.

Is beefiness jerky worth the money?

Yes, beefiness jerky is worth the money because information technology is a high-protein, healthy and convenient snack food. It is made of 100% pure beefiness that has been trimmed of fat and cut into thin strips. Then it is slowly cooked until it is dry out and hard. This process makes a durable, portable and tasty snack that will last for weeks.

Is homemade beefiness jerky worth it?

It depends on the quantity and price of beef, availability and accessibility of a dehydrator, time, experience in processing meats into hasty. If you stick with the hobby and are a true beef hasty lover, you can decrease your per batch costs and make custom jerky to your taste for less coin. Still, your first few batches will exist quite expensive.

Why is beef hasty so expensive at gas stations?

Beef hasty is expensive at gas stations because it is a loftier-value, depression-volume item. The toll of the meat and the processing required to turn it into hasty drives upward the price. Additionally, most gas stations have limited inventory space, so they cannot get the same wholesale pricing equally big disbelieve bondage.

Last Thoughts

Beefiness jerky is always expensive, regardless of whether you're making information technology at home or buying it at the store. Higher-quality products offering a real difference in flavor, though, so ultimately y'all'll demand to decide what price range you want to focus on.

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Source: https://www.priceofmeat.com/2505/why-beef-jerky-is-so-expensive/