{"id":370495,"date":"2025-12-26T03:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T03:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370495\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T03:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T03:44:07","slug":"as-beef-prices-rise-small-butcher-shops-adapt-to-changing-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370495\/","title":{"rendered":"As beef prices rise, small butcher shops adapt to changing demand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tolland, Connecticut \u2014 Stephen Boyer has owned The Country Butcher in Tolland, Connecticut, for nearly 40 years. He says the holidays are one of their busiest times of the year.<\/p>\n

“It’s about 20-25% of our yearly sales that we do during this four to six week portion of the year,” Boyer said.<\/p>\n

But this year, those holiday orders may come with a higher price tag<\/a>, with beef steak up 15% compared to last year, according to the Consumer Price Index. Pork and chicken are up just 1%. <\/p>\n

“It’s a supply and demand issue. We’ve also had issues with drought last year,” Boyer said.<\/p>\n

Disease is a growing concern, too. The domestic cattle population has dropped<\/a> to the lowest level since 1973.<\/p>\n

As a small business, Boyer can’t compete with the bigger retailers who have more purchasing power.<\/p>\n

“The big chains, they’re taking big chunks of that and that does affect us. That’ll affect pricing and availability for us,” Boyer said.<\/p>\n

With higher prices, customers are looking for alternatives.<\/p>\n

“People have definitely made some change in their buying habits. We have seen our sausage sales spike up probably about 20% more than they were at this point last year. So I think people are looking for alternatives,” Boyer said.<\/p>\n

After 36 years in business, Boyer remains optimistic, even when times are tough.<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen the ups and downs in beef and pork and poultry and you know, what we always get through it. You just have to give it a little time,” Boyer said.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

\n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tolland, Connecticut \u2014 Stephen Boyer has owned The Country Butcher in Tolland, Connecticut, for nearly 40 years. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,11529,37520],"class_list":{"0":"post-370495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-consumer-price-index","10":"tag-farmers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}