Walmart recently opened a 300,000-square-foot case-ready beef facility in Olathe, Kansas, citing their commitment to a more resilient, transparent and efficient supply chain for Angus beef. This is the first case-ready facility owned and operated by Walmart and brings about 600 jobs to the Olathe area.

In 2022, Walmart invested in Sustainable Beef, LLC, in North Platte, Nebraska, where the locally owned plant facility sources cattle from a 250-mile radius of the plant. That beef, shipped fresh in primal cuts, is shipped to the Walmart facility where it is cut and packaged for retail and shipped to Walmart stores around the midwest.

The Sustainable Beef, LLC, facility is the newest plant in North America — they processed their first beef in late May — and was built by Schmeeckle Brothers, based in Ft. Morgan. Once online, it has the capacity to process 1,500 head per day. The JBS plant in Greeley, for comparison’s sake, employs 3,100 people and processes 5,600 to 6,000 head per day in their 850,000 square foot facility.

Kansas ranchers have said it’s likely adding Walmart to the bidding for cattle is likely to keep prices high, but the retail giant is also exceptionally good at cutting costs, which could ultimately hurt prices. That’s left to be determined, but it is an interesting time in the beef industry to add a major player to the proverbial chat. The nation’s cattle herd is at historic lows with the continued closure of the Mexican border in an attempt to control New World Screwworm.

The border closure has been particularly challenging for southern Texas cattle feeders who routinely feed Mexican cattle. If you want to cause a stir, go to a café filled with ranchers and ask who wants beef from imported cattle sold in the U.S. You’ll get three different answers given with equal amounts of fire.

The times are also interesting with JBS, the Brazilian-owned packing behemoth, becoming a publicly traded company with access the U.S. capital and exceptional beef prices at the meat counter. I don’t recommend asking the ranchers at the figurative café how they feel about the Big Four Packers. JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and National Beef control about 80% to 85% of the nation’s beef market. That’s part of what makes Sustainable Beef, LLC, intriguing. I love a good tale of the little guy taking on the big boys, too, but throwing Walmart in there is a plot twist without a doubt.

There is much concern among cattle producers about the immense economic control the Big Four can exert over the price of cattle and the price of beef, because they are both buyers and sellers. That’s a big elephant in the room between producers and consumers.

Currently, prices for cattle are excellent due to short supply. Typically, prices for feeder calves take a nosedive in the fall when the majority of cattle raisers sell their calves into feedyards to begin readying them for the packers. Selling on the grid, through value-added programs, and retained ownership can help producers navigate around the seasonality of the business. This year, though, many ranchers are retaining fewer replacement heifers, retaining fewer open cows and selling more bulls by the pound because the prices are too good not to.

This spring, when bull sale season arrives, which is the bread and butter of agriculture publications like The Fence Post Magazine, producers will not only need bulls to replace the ones they sell, but they’ll also have a little extra cash (theoretically) to invest in different or better bulls. On paper, this will result in a strong seedstock market stretching through the spring and will result eventually in higher quality calves. The Mexican border closure remains the wild card in this for the cattle producers selling feeder or fat cattle.

The feedyards in south Texas are lightly stocked without a ready supply of feeder cattle coming over the border. I don’t know exact numbers in large yards here but based on the tens of thousands of tons of silage trucked into area feedyards last year, compared to the thousands trucked in this year, it seems numbers are smaller. According to the USDA Cattle on Feed Report for Sept. 1, only a 1% decrease was reported, but the placements are down 10% from 2024, and marketings are down 14%, which is the lowest August level since 1996.

As usual, cattle producers are waiting on the other shoe to drop and trying to read the tea leaves and make the right moves. There is a local cattle rancher who gives me the same answer each time I ask him how he is. He grins and tells me, “It’s a hell of a good life, but a hell of a way to make a living.”

Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication.