Ranch Notes · The Beef Market
If you've been on Facebook or Instagram in the last few weeks, you've seen it. Two steaks side by side in a grocery store cooler. One Canadian, one Australian, and the Australian one dramatically cheaper.
People have been asking us about it, so let's talk about it honestly.
It isn't a trick of the photo. Reporters have gone into stores and checked. Earlier this month at one Ontario grocery store, Canadian rib steaks were priced at roughly double the Australian rib steaks in the same case. Striploin comparisons have shown Australian product near $24 a kilogram sitting next to Canadian above $50.
So no, you're not imagining it, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.
The short version is that there aren't enough cattle.
Western Canada has been through close to a decade of drought. When pastures dry up and feed gets expensive, ranchers sell cows. Not just the steers headed to market, but the breeding cows that would have raised calves for years to come. That's what happened across the Prairies, and it's why the national herd sits at levels we haven't seen in decades.
You cannot fix that quickly. Even once ranchers start holding heifers back again, it takes several years before those decisions turn into more beef at the store. There's no switch to flip.
Costs on our end are high too. Feed, fuel, equipment, interest. The price you see at the counter is not landing in a rancher's pocket the way people sometimes assume.
Australia's situation is the opposite of ours. Their herd is near 31 million head. They're at record production. They have a longer grazing season, lower feed costs, and an industry designed around exporting, with roughly 70 percent of what they produce leaving the country.
They aren't doing anything unfair. They're a large, efficient, export focused producer, and right now the whole world is short on beef. Canada isn't the only country buying.
Here's where the meme gets it wrong, and it's the part I care most about.
Canada AAA is a Canadian grade. It's applied by the Canadian Beef Grading Agency to carcasses graded here. Imported beef is inspected for safety, but it does not receive Canadian quality grades. Beef from the United States carries USDA designations instead, like Choice, Prime or Select. Beef from elsewhere often carries no grade you'd recognize at all.
And a Canadian grade is not only about marbling. To qualify for Canada A, AA, AAA or Prime, the carcass has to be assessed as youthful. Graders determine this by examining bone ossification, which is a physical measure of age that you cannot fake or fudge. Youthful carcasses come from cattle generally under 24 months, and no more than 30. Anything more mature drops into the D grades, which is where cow beef goes, and that beef typically ends up in ground and further processed products.
So when a package says Canada AAA, you are being told two things. Good marbling, and a young animal.
When a package doesn't carry a Canadian grade, you simply aren't being told how old that animal was, or how it was raised. That's not an accusation about any particular country's beef. It's just what a label does and doesn't cover.
This is the part I know from my own kitchen rather than from a regulation.
Beef from an older animal tastes different, and not in a good way. The fat picks up a strong, heavy flavour that carries right through the cut. The meat tastes tired. If it's ground, or heavily seasoned, or buried in a sauce, you might not notice. In a steak, on a plate, with nothing but salt on it, you notice immediately.
Young beef is mild, clean and sweet. That difference is not subtle once you've tasted both.
It's one of the reasons a grade is worth understanding, and one of the reasons we're particular about when our cattle are harvested.
We're not going to tell you to feel guilty about your grocery cart. Food costs are genuinely hard on families right now, and if imported beef is what keeps steak on your table, we would rather you eat beef than give up on it.
What we will say is this.
When you buy from us there are no unknowns. You know the ranch. You know the land the cattle grazed. You know how old they were and how they were handled, because you can ask us and we will tell you. We're right here.
That's not something a price tag competes with, and it's the whole reason we do this.
Raised here, finished here, harvested young. Quarter, half and whole beef from Bear Hill Ranch in the Bighorn County foothills, west of Calgary and Cochrane.
