The Business of Being a Housewife
A manual to promote
Household Efficiency
and Economy
by
ARMOUR AND COMPANY
CHICAGO
As meat is one of the most important items of American diet, its price isa matter of moment to every housewife. Comparisons between the cost of liveanimals and the price per pound of meat sometimes lead to the conclusion thatthe existing margin is too wide and that possibly the profits of the middleman aretoo large.
After fair analysis, the housewife realizes that a live animal is not all meatand, furthermore, that the meat carcass is not all steaks and rib roasts. A comparison,therefore, between the live cost of meat animals per pound and the costper pound of a tenderloin is misleading, if it results in any conclusions relativeto margins.
Then we must reckon with the wide difference in grades of meat. We cannotcorrectly estimate the cost of a steak cut from a prime beef by that of a steakfrom a grass-fed cow. There are several grades of meat, depending upon thenature and feeding, each wholesome and nutritious, but some demanding morespecial cooking than others.
About fifty-five per cent of a steer is meat; the remainder includes the hideand various other by-products, which, except the hide, are not worth in theirprimary state anywhere near as much per pound as they cost alive. The fifty-fiveper cent of the animal which is meat must, therefore, carry the greater portionof the original cost. That is why a steer carcass might be sold by the packer fortwenty cents a pound and still fail to pay a profit, even though the live animalcost the packer only twelve cents a pound. The casual observer, noting a differenceof eight cents a pound between the live animal and the carcass, might say asixty-six per cent increase in price is unduly large; but a little deeper study developsthat the return from the carcass in this instance would fail to equal theamount paid for the live steer.
When a retailer buys a carcass, he purchases neck meat as well as loins; chucksas well as rounds. Portions of the carcass have to be sold at or sometimes lessthan he paid per pound for the carcass. The choice cuts necessarily have tomake up for the losses on the less desirable portions. It is not unreasonable, therefore,that the retailer should charge fifty or sixty cents a pound for choice steaksand fifteen cents a pound for boiling beef out of a carcass which he bought at therate of twenty cents a pound.
Only the aggregate price which the retailer gets for all parts and portions ofthe carcass will show his margin over the initial cost. It is wholly improper,therefore, to compare sixty-cent stea