Will Homer, COO of Painted Hills Natural Beef - Encore
This podcast episode delves into the complexities of the current cattle market, featuring insights from Will Homer, the COO of Painted Hills Natural Beef. A salient point of discussion is the mounting pressure on cattle prices and the broader implications for both producers and consumers. Homer articulates the challenges stemming from fluctuating costs associated with cattle production, including feed and operational expenses, which have escalated significantly in recent times. The conversation further explores the peculiarities in grocery store meat availability, reflecting on how supply chain disruptions have affected consumer access to various beef cuts. Throughout this discourse, we aim to enhance our understanding of the intricate dynamics at play in the beef industry today.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Fred Meyer
- Amazon
- Whole Foods
- Kroger
- Pig Powder
Mentioned in this episode:
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This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for Barbecue Nation with JT So fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.
Speaker A:Now from the Turn It, Don't Burn it studios In Portland, here's J.T.
Speaker A:hey, everybody.
Speaker A:Welcome to the nation.
Speaker A:That's Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:I'm JT along with my hall of Fame co host, Ms.
Speaker A:Leanne Whippen.
Speaker A:Dave and Chris are slithering around the back doing whatever they are doing.
Speaker A:And we would like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef beef the way nature intended.
Speaker A:You can check them out online@painted hillsnatural beef.com and speaking of such things, Will Homer, the COO of Painted Hills Natural Beef, has joined us again today.
Speaker A:I like to keep an eye on, obviously, the commodities markets and the beef market and that because I'm interested in it and I know our listeners are interested in it.
Speaker A:But also, we got to eat, so we got to know if we're going to get some cows in the store.
Speaker A:Well, welcome.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me today.
Speaker A:You know, you don't sound very fired up today.
Speaker A:Usually you're gregarious.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, you know, it's been one of those.
Speaker B:It's kind of a.
Speaker B:I don't know, it's kind of a sleeper, I guess, today.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:Just going to wake me up.
Speaker A:Well, that's Gabrielle's job.
Speaker A:I'm not, I'm not going there anyway.
Speaker A:What's going on in the cattle business?
Speaker B:Well, I don't know.
Speaker B:I'm getting so tired of talking about change then, and I'm not seeing it anywhere.
Speaker B:Just I don't know what to think.
Speaker B:In fact, I, I'm going to get on the road next week and get a feel for what's going on out there because you see, as you see my picture behind me, it's beautiful here.
Speaker B:I don't like to leave here.
Speaker B:It's nice and quiet and there's nothing crazy going on.
Speaker B:But I got to get out on the street and see what's going on.
Speaker B:It seems like the pressure is building on the live animal side quite a bit.
Speaker B:There's quite a bit of increased value to the producer, which is a good thing.
Speaker B:The packer.
Speaker B:As a packer, I have to give a lot more money for cattle than I have in the past.
Speaker B:And so my cost of goods have gone up quite a bit.
Speaker B:And it seems like I don't know what's happening in the retail.
Speaker B:I don't know what's happening in the grocery store, if they're moving or it's changing or it's even selling.
Speaker B:It's just.
Speaker B:It's just been.
Speaker B:It's been a weird.
Speaker B:It's just been a weird spring.
Speaker C:Well, I will say that I see beef in the store.
Speaker C:Beef prices have gone down in Florida.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Not substantially, but, you know, they have their loss leaders, of course, but I see it kind of going down a little bit.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So as you see, you see the big national guys report because they have.
Speaker B:They have stocks and things the stock owners and things they report to, you know, and they're all.
Speaker B:They're all saying.
Speaker B:Waking up to the fact that it's cost them a lot more money for the cattle they have, and their cost of operations are a lot higher than they have been.
Speaker B:So if that's going to result in a higher cost of the grocer or the grocer's going to push back and sell more pork because it's still free, I don't know.
Speaker B:I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker A:Well, I can give you your old buddy Jeff's spy observation on the retail level here.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:My wife came home the other day.
Speaker A:She went out and did some shopping.
Speaker A:She let me sleep in that morning, which was great.
Speaker A:Something I rarely get to do.
Speaker A:She came back in, she goes, you know, the store was really weird.
Speaker A:She went to two different stores.
Speaker A:And I said, how's that?
Speaker A:And she goes, well, you're going to go back there in a couple hours.
Speaker A:I know you will.
Speaker A:So why don't you.
Speaker A:Why don't you look and then tell me.
Speaker A:And we talked about this before, but this was more kind of in.
Speaker A:In indicative of what we saw partway through the pandemic.
Speaker A:There was a lot of certain products, a lot of pork, except they didn't have any ribs.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:There wasn't a rib to be found for the Memorial.
Speaker C:Memorial Day.
Speaker A:Yeah, but.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:That was not to get off in the weeds here, but I was like, what beef department manager or what meat department manager, excuse me, wouldn't order more ribs for Memorial Day?
Speaker A:You know, fourth of July, that type of thing.
Speaker A:It didn't make any sense to me.
Speaker A:When I went to the store, I actually asked the meat guy and he got real testy with me.
Speaker A:No, no ribs.
Speaker A:No ribs.
Speaker A:I'm like, okay.
Speaker A:But there was a ton of.
Speaker A:They were selling pork tenderloins.
Speaker A:Package of two for 299, not a pound.
Speaker A:299.
Speaker B:I told you it was free.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I bought some, of course.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then other things, you know, just bulk packaged meats.
Speaker A:You know, chicken, pork, beef, whatever those are.
Speaker A:You know, they're never the best cuts, you know, when they do those family packs like that.
Speaker A:But they're okay.
Speaker A:There was a lot of those.
Speaker A:There was a small amount of pre cut steaks.
Speaker A:And then in the end, in the glass counter, you know, where you think you're really getting exceptional service, but they're just pulling them out and throwing them on the scale for you.
Speaker A:But, you know, it's.
Speaker A:It's like there was a fair amount in there, but there was holes in there.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:There was no, there was no tenderloins.
Speaker A:There was no New York's.
Speaker A:There was some ribeyes, but there was no New York's.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:And so I thought, well, that's weird.
Speaker A:It just looked weird.
Speaker A:Their produce, there was big holes in their produce department.
Speaker A:And to me, you know, I grew up working in a grocery store for a while there, you shouldn't really be out of radishes, you know what I mean?
Speaker A:And that type of thing.
Speaker A:So we went to another store in another little town just north of us, Camby, you know, and went to the Fred Meyers there.
Speaker A:And it was about the same.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:So I don't know what the hell was going on.
Speaker A:And it wasn't just because it was a holiday weekend, because usually those guys have stuff stacked in the aisles for a holiday weekend.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So that's my worthless observation for you, but it's certain things, A lot of, like you said, a lot of pork.
Speaker A:I mean, you could buy pork butts for $79.
Speaker A:You know, chops in that, they were still under three bucks.
Speaker A:And so, you know, there's a lot of pork, like you said.
Speaker A:Yeah, but the beef, it was a fair amount, but not what you're used to seeing in, in those stores.
Speaker A:And I don't know the reason for it because you go other places and they're full.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Okay, Svengali, tell me what you think about that.
Speaker B:Well, I think distribution's still broken.
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:I really do.
Speaker B:I think these warehouses and, and all this, even though you're talking about a enclosed system, I guess with Fred Meyer and Kroger and such, but I think that people in warehouses are probably going to be the last positions to fill.
Speaker B:Yeah, that'd be the last price I'd want to have to go work.
Speaker B:But it refrigerated, it's cold, it's dark, you know, all those things.
Speaker B:And so I think that, I think when we go to a grocery store today, we see things that are broken, that Are distribution related.
Speaker B:Just can't get stuff from point A to point B.
Speaker A:Well, you can't have.
Speaker A:When you're facing a shelf and most people knows what.
Speaker A:Knows what.
Speaker A:Know what that means.
Speaker A:Sorry, didn't add that extra S in there.
Speaker A:But you can't have 10 rows of Nally's chili, the original chili, and then six rows of pot or six rows of turkey chili or whatever the different stuff there is it.
Speaker A:They're just filling shelves.
Speaker A:But the choices are getting more limited in some of that.
Speaker A:Or are limited right now, I should say, because I know they're still producing those products.
Speaker A:Leanne, when you're in Florida, did you notice that?
Speaker A:Have you noticed anything like that in the.
Speaker C:No, I haven't.
Speaker C:And I guess my question on the distribution is why is it that Amazon doesn't seem to have a problem?
Speaker B:The Amazon's got there.
Speaker B:I think they're.
Speaker B:Well, you know, they got a problem of their own.
Speaker B:But that's the side where they said, well, we have warehouses we're not going to open where we have warehouse, we have facilities we're not going to fill.
Speaker A:We got one right across the freeway here.
Speaker B:Yeah, they've got a couple in Seattle they've built and they're not, they're not going to put any people in them because they've just overspent.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They've over.
Speaker B:Over because they are big.
Speaker B:But I don't, I don't buy food.
Speaker B:Do you buy food through Amazon, Leanne, to see.
Speaker B:No, I give you just other goodies.
Speaker B:No, I know because I got, I got an Amazon package coming every day this week and I've even even clicked on the consolidate button and it still didn't put them together.
Speaker B:I don't know what I did.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But I am curious, you know, I am curious as to how they do with the food side of things and, and who's filling that for them.
Speaker B:But yeah, it's probably different.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think they got some pretty cushy, you know, that's all brand new, right.
Speaker B:And it's all.
Speaker B:If you got a choice, you're gonna work for Amazon.
Speaker B:They advertise on tv, they're gonna put me through college and they're gonna give me the best wages and they're gonna do all that.
Speaker B:Or I can work in a grocery scenario where there's, you know, I mean, you ever been in the back of a grocery store?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, it's just pleasant.
Speaker B:The distributor is actually more is better than that.
Speaker B:But it's, you know, it's got that.
Speaker B:It's cold and it's dark and it's.
Speaker A:It'S all that sticky floor.
Speaker A:Sticky, you know, and all that.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, with Amazon, because I did work for them for a while.
Speaker A:You and I have talked about that.
Speaker A:And they're dry goods.
Speaker A:I don't, I don't mean like fan belts or towels or something like that, but I'm talking about in the food side.
Speaker A:Spices, dry goods, rubs, prepackaged barbecue sauces, Worcestershire, whatever.
Speaker A:You know, we, I actually do buy some seasonings and stuff through Amazon that I can't get at a regular basis anymore at the grocery store.
Speaker A:So I buy three packs and four packs and stuff like that.
Speaker A:I know they have a, they have a fresh fruit food option in some areas of the country.
Speaker A:We don't have it here, so I can't speak to that.
Speaker C:But, you know, because I think they own Whole Foods.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:So you're right.
Speaker C:It's different.
Speaker C:And, and they're dealing with, you know, I mean, food is totally different.
Speaker C:It doesn't have a long shelf life, especially produce or whatever.
Speaker C:So they aren't dealing with all the ramifications that are involved with, you know, distribution on that level.
Speaker A:So we are going to take a break here and be back with Will Homer on Barbecue Nation and Ms.
Speaker A:Leanne right after this.
Speaker A:Don't go away.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody, it's jt and this is a special version of Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:It is brought to you in part by Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker A:Beef you can be proud to serve your family and friends.
Speaker A:That's Painted Hills Natural Beans.
Speaker A:Welcome back to the nation.
Speaker A:That's Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:We thank you for listening and letting the hall of Famer and myself and Mr.
Speaker A:Homer into your ears and homes today.
Speaker A:We appreciate that very much.
Speaker A:If you'd like to email us, just send it somewhere.
Speaker A:We'll find it.
Speaker A:You can send it to barbecue nation, jt.com and we will get it and we will respond.
Speaker A:Although I feel bad, I say that every show.
Speaker A:And then about two weeks ago, I got a email from a listener and I lost it and I can't find it.
Speaker A:And I wanted to respond to the gentleman and I couldn't do it.
Speaker A:So I'm going to keep looking, whoever you are out there.
Speaker A:Anyway, we're on Facebook and, and Twitter and Instagram and Spotify and all that stuff, and we're killing them with impressions and stuff.
Speaker A:And Leanne's out there on social media much more than I am, so you can find us.
Speaker A:Anyway, we're talking Will Homer, CEO of Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker A:Great product, terrific product.
Speaker A:Hey, all right, we gonna bring back that.
Speaker A:I'll get this out of the way.
Speaker A:We're gonna bring back that special.
Speaker B:Yeah, sure.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:I don't even know what it is.
Speaker C:It was 15 off.
Speaker B:Well, all right.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:What's the code, Jeff?
Speaker B:Do you remember what the code is?
Speaker C:It was BBQ Nation.
Speaker A:BBQ Nation.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So we can do that.
Speaker A:We'll, we'll start letting everybody know that.
Speaker A:Well, you got Father's Day coming up, you got fourth of July coming up.
Speaker A:You've got summer barbecues.
Speaker B:You bet.
Speaker A:And yep, it'll get.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Distributor, that's a distributor I can kick, you know, get them going.
Speaker B:And so we'll get those, we'll get some action out of them.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, just like that.
Speaker A:Just get them in the cheeks, so to speak.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker A:Yeah, you're not dealing with salmon cheeks.
Speaker A:I don't think people realize.
Speaker A:And we've talked about it many times when you've been on the show here.
Speaker A:And I'm not going to give any numbers, that's up to you.
Speaker A:But I was reading the sheet you sent me last week.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker A:And you know when I remember just like a few handful of years ago and some of the.
Speaker A:Let me give you a made up example.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker A:Just the flank steak.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Flank steak was never one of the, the choice, the big primal pieces, you know, it's like that type of thing.
Speaker A:Right, but, but if I'm not mistaken, that over the last 10 years that price has almost doubled.
Speaker B:Oh, at least.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah, like that.
Speaker A:And so, and you've got, you know, same thing, feed cost, production cost, packer cost, demand, man, people have learned to eat it.
Speaker B:So when I, when I started 20 years ago here, I didn't know anything about beef.
Speaker B:And as far as the pieces, parts and all those things.
Speaker B:And I have an ag economics degree.
Speaker B:Economics, right.
Speaker B:Supply and demand.
Speaker B:That's the first thing you learn.
Speaker B:And so what I learned was in the, the big four.
Speaker B:At the time it was four different ones than it is today, but it was the big four.
Speaker B:They drove the market and they sold the primary primals, the, the four rounds off the rear, the two chuck, the chuck and the clod and the chuck tenders off the front and the ribs and strips and tenders, all the sexy stuff in the middle, those were the items that paid for the steer.
Speaker B:And then everything else was called a credit item.
Speaker B:And I never understood what the heck did they mean by credit item and what they were, they were pricing it based on the whole value of the carcass.
Speaker B:Tri tips, flanks, skirts, all those things were two to $3 a pound.
Speaker B:They were cheap.
Speaker B:They were just get them gone, get them out of the way.
Speaker B:We'll focus on paying for this steer with the ribeyes and the tenders and the, and the, and the chucks.
Speaker B:And remember, the cattle were 82 cents a pound total live cattle.
Speaker B: They weighed: Speaker B:They cost 82 cents a pound life.
Speaker B:And, and so that's how the industry kind of was back then.
Speaker B:Beef was cheaper and, and that's the way it went.
Speaker B:And so when I stepped in here, we were kind of in the beginnings of something new with Painted Hills.
Speaker B:Mel Coleman had started the idea with Wild Oats and Whole Foods in Denver.
Speaker B:Do cattle without hormones, without antibiotics.
Speaker B:Doc and Connie Hatfield, we're starting to drive the country natural and we're talking 60 head of cattle once a week.
Speaker B:This is, this, that's the kind of, that was the beginnings of any kind of branded.
Speaker B:Put your name on product at all and do something different.
Speaker B:And that's the values they were.
Speaker B:And then I came in here and sat down and said, I'm not going to say I changed the world, but I, but I sit down, I said, well, gosh, if, if I have customers who want 25 cases of flanks a week and I can only make seven, maybe I ought to charge more than 350.
Speaker B:Why, why do you get away with 350 if, if you have this many people asking for it, right?
Speaker B:So we started pushing those numbers in the middle there, those, those credit items.
Speaker B:And, and I've, you know, and then the industry's followed.
Speaker B:We have bistros today instead of steakhouses.
Speaker B:We have ribs.
Speaker B:Used to be short ribs.
Speaker B:We collected them in the freezer and then sold them to the warehouse that we stored at, hoping they would find an exporter to send them to or something because nobody knew how to do with a short rib here in the States.
Speaker B:And now they're, they're like gold, right?
Speaker B:A bony.
Speaker B:That bone in short rib you showed us behind you there a minute ago is $7 and 50% of it is bone.
Speaker B:So that's the, that's the market that we've, we've generated over time.
Speaker B:And, and on the other side of that, I have messed that up in the past.
Speaker B:One time, flanks, I got flanks to 999.
Speaker B:And I went right on thinking this is, you know, we just demand is demand and away we go.
Speaker B:And I priced them out of the counter and what happened was as soon as I priced them out of the counter and, and it happened to everybody all at once.
Speaker B:It was weird.
Speaker B:It was a weird thing because we work with lots of retailers scattered all over the northwest and the country and they all dumped it at the same time.
Speaker B:So I had all the flanks in my lap at the same time.
Speaker B:We might have been talking about only about 50 cases, but 50 cases a week, five cases, five weeks in a row gets to be a big problem in a hurry.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But, but once you've lost.
Speaker B:Once I lost that space for flanks in the case and the meat guy said I'm not buying them and he filled that spot in, I had to drop the price all the way down below generic to buy my way back in that case to get back and start over again and start the march over again.
Speaker B:So right now, as we talk about cattle have reached $80.
Speaker B:Not just 80, but a $80.
Speaker B:And my flanks and some of my sexies tri tip and the flanks and such, you see them on that list up in the nines.
Speaker A:Right, Right.
Speaker B:I'm scared to go to 12.
Speaker B:Although I need to pay for this car somehow.
Speaker B:I'm scared to go on because I'm scared that I'm going to lose the.
Speaker B:I'm going to buy my.
Speaker B:I'm going to fall out of the case again.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And have to buy myself back in and start over.
Speaker A:And we're going to pick this up on the other side of break because I got too long winded there.
Speaker A:But we're going to be back with Will Homer, COO of Painted Hills Natural Beast Beef, Ms.
Speaker A:Leanne and myself, right after this.
Speaker A:Hey, are you ready to fire up your grill and get ready to taste the difference this spring and summer?
Speaker A:Hi, I'm JT and I'm thrilled to announce our further collaboration with Painted Hills Natural Beef to bring you your best barbecue experience.
Speaker A:As a special treat, Barbecue Nation listeners get a 15% off discount by just typing in the code Barbecue Nation when you check out.
Speaker A:So all you got to do is go to the Painted Hills Natural Beef website, click on the store, place your order and one that has discount or code at the bottom, type in BBQ Nation.
Speaker A:Don't miss out on this really juicy deal from Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker A:Welcome back to the nation.
Speaker A:That's Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:We'd like to thank the folks at Painterdale's Natural Beef.
Speaker A:We just happen to have Will Homer on the show with us today.
Speaker A:That is beef the way nature intended and they have really beefed up.
Speaker A:Haha.
Speaker A:Their Online store.
Speaker A:So if you go to painted hillsnaturalbeef.com and you pick an order, pick some, you know, whatever you want, T Bones, what have you.
Speaker A:When you go to check out, there's a little thing on the bottom left hand of your screen, type in BBQ Nation and you get 15 off.
Speaker A:You heard it here first.
Speaker B:You bet.
Speaker A:And also I want to tell you about, because certain holidays are coming up, pig powder, Ms.
Speaker A:Leanne.
Speaker A:This is a infomercial show here today, folks.
Speaker B:Yes, it is.
Speaker A:Ms.
Speaker A:Leanne's dad, whose nickname was Trim Tab, created this wonderful dry rub called Pig Powder.
Speaker A:I've used it.
Speaker A:Did you get it in yet, Will?
Speaker B:I did.
Speaker B:It's delicious.
Speaker B:Yeah, Gabrielle thinks it's a hit too.
Speaker B:So it's.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Very good.
Speaker B:Very good.
Speaker B:You bet.
Speaker C:It really.
Speaker C:It really is a good rub.
Speaker C:I'm not just saying that because my dad developed it, but it won best rub on the planet amongst a lot of other awards.
Speaker C:And a lot of my friends that compete use it and that says a lot because, you know, they're competing and they've tried a lot of products out there.
Speaker C:So it really is.
Speaker C:So you can go to pigpowder.com and I will personally ship it out for you because that's what I do all day long.
Speaker B:Good.
Speaker B:That's good.
Speaker A:And check this out.
Speaker A:Somebody actually, you know how I tease her and say she'll sign an autograph or autograph a picture for you.
Speaker A:Somebody ask her for one of those.
Speaker C:Yep, I ordered my pig powder, but I didn't see a way that I could ask for an autograph.
Speaker C:And so, but there is a, you know, an email thing that we get.
Speaker C:So if you have any questions regarding it, you know, just go to our.
Speaker A:Site and bigpowder.com so there you go.
Speaker A:Beef and pig powder dot com.
Speaker A:It's quite the deal.
Speaker A:And you can find us on social media, but we were talking about retailers and different things in the previous segment.
Speaker A:And you've always Painted Hills, not to sound redundant, but has always held quality kind of your first priority.
Speaker A:I know that's how your dad did it when he, when he started Painted Hills with the other ranchers.
Speaker A:And they did that and they higher quality of meat because people will pay for quality products.
Speaker B:Now, we want consistency.
Speaker B:We want to, we want you to know what you're going to get.
Speaker B:You're, you're going to be confident when you buy it that you had a good experience last time and you're going to have a good experience the next time.
Speaker B:And so we want consistency and we want it to be good, of course.
Speaker B:But yeah, we want it to be.
Speaker B:It's, it's kind of, that's kind of how we built the thing.
Speaker A:So now, besides my relationship with you guys, I can honestly say that I have tried and been sent samples of and I even gave you some samples of some beef that came from not of this world.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker C:It really is amazing.
Speaker C:So our tradition for Christmas is, you know, bone in prime rib.
Speaker C:And it was the most amazing prime rib that my whole family and every year.
Speaker C:So we're comparing.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And it was the best prime rib that we've ever had.
Speaker C:It was just remarkable.
Speaker C:And yeah, you might pay a smidgen more than, you know, commodity stuff.
Speaker C:It is so worth it.
Speaker C:So worth it.
Speaker A:I'm guessing now that that's why people like to come to my house at Christmas.
Speaker A:They're not particularly interested in my smiley face, but they know they're going to get Painted Hills prime rib and they line up at the front door.
Speaker A:We're going to have to make sell tickets or something going forward.
Speaker B:You said your family shows up with Tupperware though?
Speaker A:Yeah, they true.
Speaker B:That's the best.
Speaker A:Yeah, they do.
Speaker A:They, they come in and I won't see them all year and they'll come in and they'll say, oh, I thought I'd bring this back for you.
Speaker A:You know, like a $50 piece of Tupperware that I bought at the Dollar General or whatever, which is now a buck 50 general.
Speaker A:But the point is, is then I don't see it for another year.
Speaker A:So there you go.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:What are the.
Speaker A:You're in a non enviable position, Will at times.
Speaker C:Yeah, I would say it's quite trying.
Speaker A:I'm sure when you sit in a board meeting.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Or you're talking to.
Speaker A:I've been to a lot of events with you and you're talking to not only people that work with Painted Hills, but other ranchers and stuff.
Speaker A:And the, the, if you've been around ranchers, which I grew up around, they were always, oh, the price of fuel is killing me.
Speaker A:This was back in the 60s and 70s when I was a kid.
Speaker A:You know, they're.
Speaker A:Oh, the price, oh, the feed price has gone.
Speaker A:I don't know how I'm going to make any money.
Speaker A:It hasn't changed.
Speaker B:Nope.
Speaker A:That attitude hasn't changed.
Speaker A:They're great people, but they bitch a lot.
Speaker B:Well, they don't, they don't control any of their costs.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And they don't control their sales Yeah, I mean, they can't sell things.
Speaker B:You know, they, when the rubber hits the road, they sell a steer just like the neighbor does and everybody else.
Speaker B:And they need to differentiate the best they can.
Speaker B:And they can, they can where they can.
Speaker B:And they, and some are doing a really good job and some are still doing the same thing they've been doing, but that's the, that's their biggest.
Speaker B:That's the biggest thing working against them is they don't control their sale.
Speaker B:But they're, they're.
Speaker B:Right now, I think we're just kind of breaking free to kind of catch up with all those costs we've talked about over the past.
Speaker B:How long?
Speaker B:Years.
Speaker B:I mean, they feel like they've been beat up now for years, which they have.
Speaker B:And so money's kind of going to come their way.
Speaker B:But, boy, the next guy in line, the corn price because of this war thing and, and the fuel and the expenses and.
Speaker B:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker B:I just, I don't know who.
Speaker B:There's nowhere in the, in the chain yet to find the slack.
Speaker B:You know, the, the rope's tight and it's going to get tighter and, and it either needs to pull the consumer along and get them to pay more.
Speaker B:I, I don't know.
Speaker B:I just don't know where they're open the, the slack in the rope is, or, or we just get more cattle people out of the business, which is hard because, you know, we've talked about, you talked about last time.
Speaker B: he lowest cattle number since: Speaker B: But in: Speaker B:I think a fed steer was a thousand pounds.
Speaker B: now, and today I fed steer, a: Speaker B:1600 pounds.
Speaker B:I'm not doing anything like that.
Speaker B:But, yeah, that's the difference.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Well, that was my next question, and you kind of touched on it.
Speaker A:Is there enough cattle?
Speaker A:Because Pat from Cattle Facts, the bovine verse version of Carfax, gave a speech last year, your deal last year, and I love that.
Speaker A:And he said, we're going to be a million head short.
Speaker A:And I was sitting behind him because I was trying to stay out of the way, and I went, a million head.
Speaker A:That's a lot of.
Speaker A:That's a lot of beef on the hoof, man.
Speaker A:Is there enough.
Speaker A:Is there enough cattle we export?
Speaker B:I think the United States has gotten up to export 18% of the beef they produce.
Speaker B:Yeah, so you in the United States just have to outbid the, the export market, which is pretty easy to get.18 back.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's a big deal.
Speaker B:One million is a week and a half's production.
Speaker B:So I'm not going to run the calculator here, but yeah, it'll balance out.
Speaker B:It's okay.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Where do we export from?
Speaker C:Australia?
Speaker B:Export to two.
Speaker B:You mean, is it.
Speaker B:We're going to.
Speaker C:I'm sorry, import.
Speaker B:Import.
Speaker C:Import.
Speaker B:We export.
Speaker B:We export beef and we import beef both.
Speaker B:And it's because the fact that we have so many different types of beef that come off a carcass.
Speaker B:So we export a lot of beef to Asia and value high value items and items we taught the Japanese years ago to eat.
Speaker B:Chuck, rolls, ribeyes, short ribs, briskets.
Speaker B:Some things that.
Speaker B:This was a long time ago.
Speaker B:They slice real thin, see?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:See, now all of a sudden, briskets, you know, but, but way back when the brisket was the same way.
Speaker B:We'd wait for them to ball up in the freezer and then sell them to somebody who could sell them to Texas for a dollar and a half a pound because nobody knew what to do with them.
Speaker B:So then, now they've worked on China because they think China was going to be the answer.
Speaker B:And so they've worked on China, but when they worked on China, they taught them to eat more of the whole carcass as a whole.
Speaker B:Not altogether, but the round meat and the chuck meat along with the middle meats.
Speaker B:Because in China, years ago, this was before COVID I don't have any recent examples, but I listened to a guy on here that talks about China all the.
Speaker B:They would take that nice big heavy T bone that we, we eat here and we try to.
Speaker B:Ten years ago I consumed the whole thing, right?
Speaker B:Well, in China they take that big thing like that, they throw it on the table there in front of you for $300 and then four or five people eat on it.
Speaker B:And so that's.
Speaker B:We've taught them to eat.
Speaker B:We've taught me beef.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:And then, and then export.
Speaker B:We don't export a lot of cattle to the EU and such.
Speaker B:Their EU has pretty strict protection.
Speaker B:They're protectionists.
Speaker B:They protect their own industry, protect their own people there.
Speaker B:You know, you, you can't talk about tariffs and all that stuff anymore, but there is.
Speaker B:And then we send livers and, and some other non typical items to Egypt and we sell lots of other non typical items to Mexico.
Speaker B:I think Mexico process further processes it, sells it back to us really.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:And then we import lean beef, which is, which is like that crap I brought over to you worn out cows?
Speaker B:Worn out dairy cows, which we harvest here in the States about a hundred thousand a week.
Speaker B:But we also bring lean beef from Australia, New Zealand, Brazil.
Speaker B:Now, beef that we wouldn't grill.
Speaker B:You couldn't chew it.
Speaker B:To grill it, you grind that to go with the fat.
Speaker B:The excess fat we make here in the States, and that fills in some of the demand for hamburgers.
Speaker B:Oh, interesting.
Speaker B:So we.
Speaker B:We have a huge demand for hamburger, and our hamburger's gone up in value a little bit because actually, Japan has moved to eating more hamburger.
Speaker B:They figured out we've been fooling them into eating rib steaks all this time, and now they figured out hamburger's cheaper, so they're buying more hamburger and grind items now, too.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I'm rumbling on stuff.
Speaker A:No, no, no, that.
Speaker A:That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker A:But speaking of not working, we gotta take a break so we don't have.
Speaker A:And we're going to be back with Will Homer from Painter Hills Natural Beef right after this.
Speaker B:Oh, goodness.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody, it's jt, and this is a special version of Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:It is brought to you in part by Painted Hills Natural Beef, beef you can be proud to serve your family and friends.
Speaker A:That's Painted Hills Natural Beef, everybody.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:I'm JT along with Ms.
Speaker A:Leanne Whippen.
Speaker A:She's been a busy girl.
Speaker A:You can see her on qvc.
Speaker A:She's been out there smiling.
Speaker A:Yeah, she's had several appearances on there lately, working with her folks at pit boss, and it's a wonderful thing.
Speaker C:And the day I flew back, I did more training for my food truck and then opened up my food truck on Saturday.
Speaker A:Yeah, she's a go getter, I'll tell you that.
Speaker A:She runs circles around me, so.
Speaker A:And that's not very hard to do.
Speaker A:They're just big circles, though, to get around.
Speaker A:Anyway, we're talking with Will Homer from Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker A:You know, I don't want the listeners to think that it's all doom and gloom.
Speaker A:It's not.
Speaker A:I don't think it is.
Speaker A:We tend to cycle through these things every few years, and then we come out on the other side.
Speaker A:Changes are made.
Speaker A:Some procedural changes are made along the way, but, you know, there's still going to be Painted Hills and.
Speaker A:And other quality meats on the shelf for them.
Speaker A:Is that not true?
Speaker B:You're talking about an industry that's awful big and it's got awful deep pockets.
Speaker B:And we were talking about earlier, talking about board members sitting around a boardroom at A board table.
Speaker B:And they've been doing it for 25 years.
Speaker B:They're still the same people today that they were 25 years ago.
Speaker B:There's no war chest.
Speaker B:There's no buckets of background, background money.
Speaker B:There's just.
Speaker B:We've been in a scramble and a struggle to be in business for 25 years and it's going to be that way.
Speaker B:That's the commodity business, that's the industry we're in.
Speaker B:So when you get in these downturns that go with the upturns.
Speaker B:Yeah, we went through an upturn recently that was a good, that was a good year and a half.
Speaker B:This is a downturn that we don't know yet where the bottom is.
Speaker B:And that's the side.
Speaker B:That's the, the biggest question is this isn't just down here in a, a week or two.
Speaker B:We, we've been down quite a while and we don't.
Speaker B:And we're on, still on that trajectory.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And we kind of put it in print next month when we buy calves next month we'll buy calves for beef for next April and that'll be, it'll be set in stone at that point.
Speaker B:The decisions made.
Speaker B:So the decisions made.
Speaker B:How many head of cattle and how many head of cattle will you need when and how much we have to.
Speaker A:Sell it for part of that reason though, those same people for the last 25 years, it's, to me it's self explanatory.
Speaker A:If you just look at the picture behind Will, when they can live in that beautiful country that gets a little cold in the winter and hot in the summer and it's kind of dry, but it's the most scenic place and there's a lot of freedom that goes with that.
Speaker A:As far as, you know, Costco isn't come to Fossil anytime soon.
Speaker C:Do you think that, you know, with the presidential election looming that that affects the pricing?
Speaker C:Like everyone's worried about costs and you know how much food is and you know these candidates might push for lower food prices as part of their platform.
Speaker B:How will they do that?
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:Usually when they talk about it, like when Biden talks about, oh he's going to get gas to go down, we know how he does that.
Speaker C:He pulls it out of the reserve, whatever.
Speaker C:But I don't know is what they say, does the industry try to follow suit and make us believers or what.
Speaker B:Is it.
Speaker C:So politics really doesn't affect it?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I don't, I have a, you know, let's talk about Fuel for just a half a second.
Speaker B:We do the, we have a fuel jobber here in Fossil.
Speaker B:My parents do it.
Speaker B:It sells about two semi loads of of fuel a week.
Speaker B:It used to sell 10 and when it did that's how Painted Hills had the money to get started.
Speaker B:And, and, but anyhow, my point is barrels today are under 80 bucks and fuel is $4 at the pro pump.
Speaker B:Go back in time we used to pay, we used to pay a set dollar seventy with four dollar fuel.
Speaker B:So there's other costs that have eaten that margin up.
Speaker B:And I don't know, I'm not going to begrudge anybody and say they've, they've, they're putting in their pocket.
Speaker B:I'm just going to say there's other costs that have eaten that a lot, eaten that up.
Speaker B:That's the same kind of pressures we're dealing with.
Speaker B: in a place to make him weigh: Speaker B:We used to take that steer off that mountain for 55 cents a pound gain and today we put him on and we, we give him a two dollar a pound gain.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker B:And he gains and he gains £500 and that's the cost that's just really eating this up.
Speaker B:How do we get that money back?
Speaker B:The corn guy has to have bumper crop and he has to be, he has to be swimming in corn.
Speaker B:Now the downside to that, I spent some time with some corn guys out of the Midwest about two months ago and they're the same farmer.
Speaker B:They're saying good God, I hope it doesn't get below 5.
Speaker B:Buc will never make it work at that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So they're the, they're a farmer.
Speaker B:They're a commodity guide set against the commodity guy.
Speaker B:So there we are.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Will is going to stick around for after hours.
Speaker A:Don't forget that you can now get Painted Hills beef barbecue nation discount by going to Painted Hills Natural.
Speaker A:I had a question and then we're almost out of time.
Speaker A:What is the.
Speaker A:There's a couple ways people can get online and go to, you know, naturalbeef.com or whatever.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Natural-beef.com because we got beat to naturalbeef.com sorry, somebody else.
Speaker B:It's paintedhillsbeef.com or paintedhillsnaturalbeef.com so okay, I don't do phnb.com because somebody's got it scalped and they want 25, 000 out of me to buy it.
Speaker B:And I want.
Speaker A:I want you.
Speaker B:And they've had it for.
Speaker B:They've had it for 20 years and they're still waiting.
Speaker A:Maybe you should send me to talk to them.
Speaker B:They've had it for 20 years and they're still holding out.
Speaker B:Yeah, we had.
Speaker B:We had that good year a couple years ago, and I said, mess.
Speaker B: I'm gonna give them: Speaker B:I'm gonna take my name.
Speaker B:They didn't budge.
Speaker A:All right, well, now that we got everybody fired up for.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker A:Q season coming up.
Speaker A:We are going to get out of here because we're out of time for the regular show.
Speaker A:But Will is going to stick around for after hours.
Speaker A:That's always the.
Speaker A:Ms.
Speaker A:Leanne's food truck is open.
Speaker A:Don't forget about her pig powder.
Speaker A:And me, I just got a new Hawaiian shirt.
Speaker A:So that's the big highlights of the week.
Speaker A:Anyway, we thank you for listening, Will.
Speaker A:Thanks for being with us, Leanne.
Speaker A:Great job as always.
Speaker A:And we'll be back next week with another edition of Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:Take care, everybody.
Speaker B:Sam.
Speaker A:Barbecue Nation is produced by JTSV, LLC Productions in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserved.
