US Birthrate Continues to Decline

[JohnDB]

My trade, retail meat cutter, was ruined by cheap immigrant labor.

Have you seen a new beef processing facility?
Emphasis on NEW.

It's so automated it's scary.

You were replaced by robots. Not cheap labor.
The cheap labor is nothing more than grunt labor....
They pick up empty boxes and put them into the machines. (Which the machine then folds them and glues them)
They reload the stretch film....
They sweep the floor...

That's it.....they really don't do much of anything with the meat itself anymore.

I get it....meat cutters (butcher) is a skilled trade worth every penny paid to them.

The more jax the butcher is allowed to make the more magic he can create.

Most of that is now gone for automation.
I butcher most of my own meat....I don't do sides of beef anymore.....I usedtacould....but it's been a minute since I ordered a side. (I could save like $100 of food cost by doing so....but I had a country club so I could do as I wanted and could actually use all of it. Everything from the knuckle to the round....even shanks....ribs of course...sirloin and even chuck and brisket.

A lot went to the grinder for burgers....but the huge gooseneck round (steamship too much) and prime rib as well as steaks I'd cut made a bank of savings. The rest would become daily specials. But I could charge full retail for the beef and I got the bones for the stock pot.

Brisket became corned beef or BBQ. Chuck was always ground for burgers....like we wouldn't sell them?

But I never could find a professional part time butcher to do this stuff for me. They were already rare and gone by the time I was running kitchens. Hiring qualified staff already was impossible.

Now it's a specialized trade for upscale clientele.
If you can still break down sides of swinging beef. There's a nickel to be made.

 

[Woodznutz]

Cities don't think in terms of affordable housing. All they want is more property taxes from expensive homes to pay for bike paths and social programs. They talk 'affordable housing' then instruct the city planners to only approve expensive developments or high density (read "projects") for the poor.

 

[Woodznutz]

Have you seen a new beef processing facility?
Emphasis on NEW.

It's so automated it's scary.

You were replaced by robots. Not cheap labor.
The cheap labor is nothing more than grunt labor....
They pick up empty boxes and put them into the machines. (Which the machine then folds them and glues them)
They reload the stretch film....
They sweep the floor...

That's it.....they really don't do much of anything with the meat itself anymore.

I get it....meat cutters (butcher) is a skilled trade worth every penny paid to them.

The more jax the butcher is allowed to make the more magic he can create.

Most of that is now gone for automation.
I butcher most of my own meat....I don't do sides of beef anymore.....I usedtacould....but it's been a minute since I ordered a side. (I could save like $100 of food cost by doing so....but I had a country club so I could do as I wanted and could actually use all of it. Everything from the knuckle to the round....even shanks....ribs of course...sirloin and even chuck and brisket.

A lot went to the grinder for burgers....but the huge gooseneck round (steamship too much) and prime rib as well as steaks I'd cut made a bank of savings. The rest would become daily specials. But I could charge full retail for the beef and I got the bones for the stock pot.

Brisket became corned beef or BBQ. Chuck was always ground for burgers....like we wouldn't sell them?

But I never could find a professional part time butcher to do this stuff for me. They were already rare and gone by the time I was running kitchens. Hiring qualified staff already was impossible.

Now it's a specialized trade for upscale clientele.
If you can still break down sides of swinging beef. There's a nickel to be made.

Sadly, with all that automation and cheap labor, retail meat cutters don't make that much money anymore. It used to be a fairly good paying job. I loved it.

Almost as bad is the switch from the English Hereford to the Black Angus. More profitable maybe, but not near the quality.

 

[JohnDB]

Sadly, with all that automation and cheap labor, retail meat cutters don't make that much money anymore. It used to be a fairly good paying job. I loved it.

Basically they fill the cases according to a plan....that's it.

 

[Woodznutz]

Basically they fill the cases according to a plan....that's it.

All it takes is one greedy link in the chain and the whole thing falls.

 

[JohnDB]

All it takes is one greedy link in the chain and the whole thing falls.

Some of this is in the Farm Credit bureau. Not the companies themselves.

IOW before the beef was born it's full grown butchered price was figured out.

 

[JohnDB]

 

[JohnDB]

 

[Correll]

Whoa. That is shocking. And in a good way.


Good find.

 

[JohnDB]

Whoa. That is shocking. And in a good way.


Good find.

The USA is still in trouble....
Because it's not just all about the USA....global economy.