OCR Text |
Show WHAT BECOMES OF YOUR MEAT DOLLAR When a meat packer take?, in a dollar, what happens to it? The answer to that question will probably come as a surprise to a good many consumers. As anyone can guess, part of the revenue goes to livestock producers, part for the expenses of carrying on the packing business, and a part is retained as profit earned for performing an essential service and for necessary improvement and expansion of facilities. But, in all likelihood, relatively few people have an accurate idea of how that dollar is divided." Here, then, is how it is spent, on the average: The farmer receives re-ceives 79 cents for livestock, etc. Nineteen cents is used to meet the payroll and other expenses. That means that only l'a cents out of each dollar of sales or a fraction of a cent per pound on the selling price of meat is kept as profit. That is certainly a modest wage for an industry which provides the farmers of this country with a daily cash market for all classes of livestock and keeps the meat supply flowing into all the consuming con-suming centers from villages to metropolises. Fresh meat is perishable. per-ishable. Most of it must be sold within a short time, and for whatever what-ever price it will bring. That price is established by the old law of .supply and demand. It isn't fixed by the farmers, the packers, or any other group except the 145,-000,000 145,-000,000 American consumers and their collective demand for the supply of meat available. This country's appetite for meat is steadily growing. We must have a constantly expanding livestock live-stock industry. The packers' job is to work with the farmer to make that possible. |