Agriculture: record prices for beef – steak becomes luxury goods

The beef prices in Germany climb from record high too record high. The slaughter prices for young bull meat have now exceeded the threshold of 7 euros per kilogram of reading in official Bavarian data as well as at the unification of the producer groups for cattle and meat (VEZG) in Oldenburg. Compared to summer 2023, this is a price increase of a good 50 percent, well above the general inflation rate. Consumer prices at the butcher and in the supermarket are still many times higher, kilo prices from forty to over fifty euros for good quality beef steak are no exception.

Why is it? “The development can be explained by the decline in cattle stocks,” says Tim Koch, Head of Meat Management at the Agrarmarkt Information Society (AMI) in Bonn. “They go back by two, three or four percent every year. Many farms close, there are often no operational successors.”

In numbers: In May 2015, the German farmers still kept 12.6 million cattle according to data from the Federal Statistical Office, in May this year there were only 10.3 million. Therefore, fewer cattle are therefore inevitably led to the slaughterhouse. In the Federal Republic, domestic meat is by no means consumed, but the number of cattle also decreases in other European countries. “The demand for beef has also decreased in recent years, but the supply of slaughter animals has become scarcer,” says Koch.

Blue -tongue disease tightened the development

The inflation of beef and dairy products was temporarily exacerbated by a animal disease – which is harmless to humans – that has taken its way through the stables since autumn 2023: the blue -tongue disease. In addition to cattle, the pathogen also affects sheep and goats. From May 2024 to the end of April 2025, the federal Friedrich Löffler Institute counted 17,854 blue-tongue infections, now the highlight has been exceeded.

“Overall, we have significantly fewer cases this year because many animals were affected last year,” says a spokeswoman. “Natural witness and strong willingness to vaccinate in all federal states have greatly reduced the potentially receptive animals”.

The blue -tung disease is transferred by Gnitzen, a family of very small mosquitoes that are widespread worldwide. These are usually particularly active in September and October. “Some new cases can still be expected by the end of October, but the number of cases will not reach the level from last year,” says the biologist.

Trend reversal not recognizable

But the decline in blue -tongue infections does not go hand in hand with an end to inflation. Because nothing has changed in the fundamental data: fewer farmers keep fewer cattle. The cattle keeper’s job seems to have become so unattractive that not even the high prices do not change anything.

“A trend reversal in cattle husbandry is currently not recognizable,” says a spokeswoman for the Federal Association of Rind and Meat. “Even if you could have expected, some companies will take the currently cheap market situation before they stop, the structural change continues unchanged.”

Mercosur agreement is expected to have no big effect

For the farmers who have not given up their cattle, the high producer prices are naturally gratifying. However, a number of farmers are concerned that the – not yet ratified – Mercosur free trade agreement of the EU with South America could drive prices back into the basement in Germany. Brazil is with over 210 million animals of the world’s largest beef producer, also in Uruguay, Argentina or Chile there are huge herds of cattle.

“The Mercosur Agreement is likely to influence the European meat market less than expected,” says the Federal Association of beef and meat. “In the renegotiations, the additional import quantities were significantly limited, so that in the case of beef is only a very small volume in the low single -digit percentage range of South American annual production.”

High producer prices do not make up for years of peasant frustration

But why do cattle holders give up when the producer prices are high for both meat and milk? The Bavarian Farmers’ Association gives several reasons: large bureaucratic stress and requirements, high investment costs and “social pressure”. The latter refers, among other things, to the years of criticism of environmental and animal rights activists in conventional agriculture, which many farmers annoyed.

High producer prices do not necessarily mean that the farmers would now make huge profits. “Especially in the bull mast, the prices have increased, but also the costs,” says a BBV spokeswoman. “Bull calves cost significantly more in 2025 than in the previous year, at times even twice.”

Apart from that, the agricultural market has always been characterized by wild fluctuations. In particular, the dairy farmers suffered from low prices a few years ago, which did not even cover the costs.

At the moment, however, little is indicated by a new deep price phase. “I don’t think that beef prices are falling to the level again, as we had a year and a half ago,” says Fleischmann Koch at the Information Society Agricultural Market. “We will level off at a higher level.”