Question 1

Is the retail figure a price a restaurant pays?

Accepted Answer

No. Retail here is USDA ERS national-average GROCERY retail per pound of retail equivalent. It is not a delivered price, not a wholesale-invoice price, and not a menu price. An operator buying near the wholesale rung sits well below the grocery-retail figure — for beef the wholesale value is 542.6 cents versus 1008.4 cents at grocery retail.

Question 2

What does downstream markup share mean?

Accepted Answer

It is the share of the farm-to-retail spread that falls in the wholesale-to-retail leg — downstream of where a kitchen buys. For beef 94% of the 493-cent farm-to-retail spread is wholesale-to-retail; for pork 82% of a 380-cent spread. It is a documented composition of published spreads, not a claim about who profits.

Question 3

Is net farm value the same as what a farmer is paid at the gate?

Accepted Answer

Net farm value is USDA ERS's estimate of the farm value of the meat in a pound of retail equivalent, net of byproduct allowance. It is a national-average accounting series, not an individual farm-gate transaction price.

Question 4

Why does broiler chicken have no farm rung?

Accepted Answer

USDA ERS never published a net-farm-value series for broilers — only a wholesale and a retail composite. The three-rung walk honestly collapses to two rungs for chicken, and the wholesale series itself starts in 1990 versus retail's 1980. The missing rung is shown as an explicit gap, never imputed.

Question 5

Does this predict where meat prices are going?

Accepted Answer

No. Every figure is descriptive of the tracked USDA ERS series through December 2025. The May 2020 wholesale spike is shown with a described coincident backdrop (COVID-era plant disruptions), never as a causal or forward-looking claim.

Protein	Net farm	Wholesale	Retail	Farm→whole spread	Whole→retail spread	Downstream share
Choice beef	515.4	542.6	1008.4	27.2	465.8	94%
Pork	106.1	175.2	485.7	69.0	310.5	82%
Broiler chicken	—	82.3	241.2	—	158.9	—