CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx \u2014 The holidays are in full swing \u2014 and so is the price of meat!<\/p>\n
Back in September, I introduced you to Peter Patel and how he’s navigating the rising cost of his meat at his market. I went back to visit him to see if anything has changed for his customers.<\/p>\n
“The holidays are going to get tough,” Peter Patel, Meat Market Owner, said.<\/p>\n
That’s Peter Patel, he owns several meat markets in the city. In September, we talked about his customers opting for cheaper cuts of meat to help keep money in their pockets.<\/p>\n
Two months later, he says:<\/p>\n
“It went slight down. Not tremendous. Not that we saw last year,” Patel said.<\/p>\n
But not enough for customers to go back to their old spending habits.<\/p>\n
“This year is record high price. We’ve never seen sales of ground beef at six or seven dollars a pound. This year is the year,” Patel said.<\/p>\n
And he feels for his customers who are just trying to feed their family.<\/p>\n
“It’s very hard to sustain the price. We try our best to keep the price down,” Patel said.<\/p>\n
I met Terry Tolbert and Edward Green as they were shopping. The men tell me they skipped a full turkey and went with turkey legs instead.<\/p>\n
“Food has always been high. It’s really high now. But it’s not going back down,” Edward Green, Shopper, said.<\/p>\n
“You used to buy a chicken for a little to nothing. Now, a whole chicken will cost you $10,” Terry Tolbert, Shopper, said.<\/p>\n
Terry says right now, everyone is in the same boat.<\/p>\n
“I might not have much. I’m on a budget just like everyone else,” Tolbert said.<\/p>\n
And says even if he has to buy the cheaper meat, he wouldn’t miss his holiday family dinner for the world.<\/p>\n
“We got people that’s not here no more. But they looking down on us, and they’re smiling,” Tolbert said.<\/p>\n
He also feels for business owners like Patel, saying they don’t want these prices either.<\/p>\n
“They putting a high price. And it’s hurting them. They gotta raise the prices up,” Tolbert said.<\/p>\n
But at the end of the day, he says something has to give.<\/p>\n
“The way things is right now. We gotta live. They gotta cut these prices down. They really do,” Tolbert said.<\/p>\n
Patel says he’s hoping prices level out so customers can get back to their traditional holiday meats.<\/p>\n
“This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.”<\/p>\n
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