State of the Smoke: Fall 2025 (Q4 2025)

The MSC Market Desk · reviewed by John Kirker · Published January 5, 2026 · Data: Fall 2025 USDA AMS reports

The Take

Opinion – the desk’s own read, not advice.

We’ve been staring at this table for three months now, and here’s our honest read: beef is not having a bad quarter, it’s having a structural moment, and pretending it’s a blip is how you end up overpaying at the case in March. Chuck roast at $9.97/lb, up 74% from a year ago, isn’t sticker shock from one bad Tuesday – it’s what a cattle herd at its smallest size in decades looks like on a receipt. We’d stop treating chuck like the ‘budget’ braise cut this winter and start treating pork shoulder – still up sharply but nowhere near beef’s trajectory – as the actual value play, along with wings and turkey, both of which just fell off a cliff.

Our advice to the home cook and the caterer alike: lean into the cuts the market is currently punishing for reasons that have nothing to do with quality – turkey, wings, tri-tip – and be deliberate, not reflexive, about beef. If you’re going to spend on a ribeye, at least know it’s already down 16% from its fall peak. Buy the dip, skip the chuck.

The scoreboard (December 2025 grocery features, national averages)

Full live table for every cut: Meat Prices This Week.

The movers

The quarter’s headline is beef’s split personality. Chuck roast rode a 14.7% quarterly gain to $9.97/lb, capping a run that’s left it up 74% year-over-year – by far the steepest 12-month climb on our board. Pork butt/shoulder, the pitmaster’s other braise-and-smoke staple, moved even faster on the quarter: up 35.3% to $3.64/lb, though its year-over-year gain (50.4%) trails chuck’s. These two cuts anchored our beef vs. pork guide updates this quarter, and the gap between them is widening, not narrowing.

Steaks told a more mixed story. Ribeye actually retreated 16% on the quarter to $15.78/lb even while sitting 29.7% above last December; NY strip barely budged (+6.2% quarterly, +34.3% yearly) at $15.19/lb. Filet mignon climbed 16.5% on the quarter to $17.62/lb but remains 13.7% cheaper than a year ago – a reminder that not every premium cut is chasing chuck’s fireworks. Prime rib was essentially flat quarter over quarter (-1.7%) at $14.13/lb heading into the holiday roast season.

Poultry delivered the quarter’s biggest relief. Whole turkey cratered 28.4% month over month to $2.04/lb, down 32.9% year over year – classic post-holiday glut pricing. Chicken wings fell 16.4% on the quarter to $2.91/lb (down 25.2% year-over-year), and whole chicken slipped 8% to $2.30/lb. If you’re feeding a crowd on a budget, poultry is doing you a favor right now.

Pork and lamb rounded out the board with wide swings: pork loin surged 48.7% on the quarter to $3.36/lb, baby back ribs jumped 35.9% to $4.43/lb, while tri-tip (-23.5% to $7.44/lb), leg of lamb (-18.2% to $8.35/lb), beef short ribs (-20.9% to $8.67/lb) and spare ribs (-16.9% to $3.35/lb) all gave back ground. Brisket, the smokehouse benchmark, was nearly flat on the quarter at -0.6%, holding at $8.27/lb.

The forces under the market

The force behind beef’s run is structural, not seasonal. Published reporting ties the surge to a U.S. cattle herd at its smallest level in nearly 75 years, the result of years of drought that burned up pasture, drove up feed costs, and pushed ranchers to liquidate animals rather than rebuild herds.^†3†4 Trade policy piled on: reporting describes higher tariffs on beef from Canada and Brazil alongside a suspension of live cattle imports from Mexico over a parasite concern, both of which tightened available supply further just as beef demand stayed unusually resilient.^†7†11

Pork sat on the opposite side of the ledger. USDA’s September 2025 outlook pointed to larger hog supplies and actually trimmed its 2025 hog price forecast, suggesting pork’s price moves this quarter were driven more by retail-level inflation and cut-specific demand than by any supply shock comparable to beef’s herd contraction.^†13

Poultry’s story was disease, not weather: published reporting says avian influenza curtailed turkey production and pushed wholesale tom turkey prices sharply higher this fall – even as our retail whole-turkey number fell hard into December on seasonal post-holiday liquidation.^†3 Broiler chicken pricing, by contrast, stayed comparatively firm in USDA’s outlook, with poultry more shaped by disease disruption and export softness than by drought.^†13

Voices from the pit

The pressure on beef costs is showing up on menus and balance sheets across the barbecue trade. City Barbeque in Ohio told USA Today it had absorbed part of the beef spike but still raised its brisket sandwich to $11.49 from $9.99 this year.^†1 In Vermont, Big Fatty’s BBQ in White River Junction said beef costs had risen $1 to $2 per pound in just a couple of weeks and responded with modest price increases on brisket, burnt ends, and ribs.^†3

In Dallas, Hurtado Barbecue owner Brandon Hurtado told reporters beef costs were running about 20% to 25% above the prior year, and said the shop was leaning on waste reduction and its sausage program rather than leaning solely on menu price hikes.^†9 Not every operator weathered it the same way – Ray Ray’s Hog Pit in Columbus closed nearly half its locations amid financial strain tied in part to beef costs, filing for Chapter 11 in December 2025 after shuttering several sites in November.^†6†10 And County Line’s Skeeter Miller told NPR he was paying nearly double for hamburger meat compared to just a few months earlier, a sign the squeeze reached well beyond any single chain.^†2

The playbook

For the family cook: Turkey and wings are the quarter’s gift – whole turkey at $2.04/lb and wings at $2.91/lb are both down sharply, so stock the freezer now rather than waiting for next Thanksgiving’s promotional window. If chuck roast is calling your name for Sunday braises, know you’re paying near the top of its range; pork loin, despite its own 48.7% quarterly jump, is still the cheaper protein-per-plate option at $3.36/lb. Ribeye’s 16% quarterly pullback to $15.78/lb makes this a better month than most to splurge on steak night.

For the caterer or competition cook: Brisket held nearly flat this quarter ($8.27/lb, -0.6%) – lock in supplier relationships now before any beef-market surprise passes through. Pork shoulder’s 35.3% quarterly jump means smoked-pork menu items need a hard look at pricing; consider following Hurtado Barbecue’s lead and shifting emphasis toward sausage or poultry-based items where margins are less squeezed.^†9 Watch chicken quarters and thighs, both nearly flat on the quarter, as a stable backbone for value catering menus.

Watching next quarter

Into Q1 2026, we’re watching whether beef’s structural tightness – the smallest cattle herd in decades, tariff friction with Canada and Brazil, and the Mexico import suspension – eases or deepens further.^†3†7 Chuck roast and pork butt, our two biggest quarterly movers, deserve a close eye for whether December’s pace holds into the new year. On the relief side, watch whether turkey’s post-holiday plunge and wings’ steep pullback are temporary lulls or the start of a genuinely cheaper poultry stretch, especially if avian influenza pressure on wholesale turkey continues to ease.^†3 We’ll also be tracking whether grocers’ shift toward private-label and bulk-value merchandising – already visible this quarter – starts showing up as a real ceiling on beef-driven grocery inflation.^†13

Sources

1. www.wlki.com/view_article.php
2. www.cattlerange.com/articles/2025/09/high-beef-prices-continue-into-fall/
3. www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-asked-doj-investigate-meat-packing-companies-driving-up-beef-2025-11-07/
4. www.npr.org/2025/09/18/nx-s1-5534424/beef-prices-record-high-cost
5. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/business/beef-prices-steakhouses.html
6. www.retailbrew.com/stories/2025/12/22/protein-hype-food-prices-soar-in-2025
7. www.nrn.com/restaurant-finance/how-restaurant-chains-are-managing-steep-beef-costs
8. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/22/newsletters/beef-prices-rise-cattle-shortage/
9. www.cnbc.com/2025/11/28/chart-how-much-coffee-prices-have-risen-since-1985.html
10. markets.financialcontent.com/wral/article/marketminute-2025-10-27-beef-and-veal-prices-soar-nearly-15-igniting-fresh-concerns-over-grocery-inflation
11. www.grocerydive.com/news/grocery-inflation-meat-prices-september-2025-food-cpi/803872/
12. vespertool.com/news/beef-prices-face-pressure-as-wholesale-demand-shows-signs-of-cooling/
13. www.muenstergrassfed.com/post/2025-beef-prices-what-gives
14. www.cnbc.com/2025/12/07/beef-prices-are-soaring-heres-why-thats-hard-to-fix.html