Beef freedom, it’s over

Zebra Consumption Chen Xiaojing

Beef prices rose one after another, and the workers were hit hard in the heart – “Beef Freedom” ended in this way.

Two years ago, affordable beef restaurants opened like crazy on the street. Hot pot, skewers, self-service and other businesses were booming. The unit price per customer was 40 to 50 yuan, making eating beef a daily routine for ordinary people. However, the low prices resulting from the continuous losses on the breeding side cannot be sustained after all.

Since last year, beef prices have been rising moderately, and the low-price window has slowly closed. According to the national agricultural wholesale market, beef prices increased by nearly 27% from the first quarter of 2025 to November this year.

Consumers quickly found alternatives. Pork that’s still at a low price, and chicken that’s more cost-effective.

Beef prices have rebounded, and farmers have finally reached a profit turning point. Industry organizations estimate that in October 2026, the profit per head of beef cattle under the self-breeding and self-raising model will be close to 6,000 yuan, and the profit per head of professional fattening cattle will also be more than 4,000 yuan.

In the final analysis, there are two reasons for the rise in beef prices: first, the supply in the domestic market continues to shrink, and second, the quota for imported beef is restricted.

This rising cycle is likely to last until next year, or even the year after that. Consumers who like to eat beef may really have to control their gluttony in the future.

牛價漲了

I went to a wet market in downtown Wuhan last weekend and found that there were significantly fewer people in front of the beef stall. Because the price of beef has risen again, the unit price of Wagou, Niulin and other parts has already exceeded the prefix 4, and the price of high-quality cucumber strips is firmly in the prefix 5.

I remember that in 2024, the price of fresh beef at the stall was still around 30 yuan. At that time, there were a lot of frozen Argentinian beef tendons on the e-commerce platform for more than 20 yuan per pound.

The stall owner said that the price has been rising for a long time. Nowadays, there are fewer customers buying beef, and the volume of single purchases has also shrunk significantly, making business a bit difficult.

The price of a certain brand of braised beef shop next door has also increased. In the past, a pound of braised beef was less than 60 yuan, but now the unit price has risen to 90 yuan/jin, and the price of better quality is even higher.

How did beef prices rise this time?

After combing through public information, we found that beef prices have officially entered an inflection point in the upward cycle, which will occur in the second quarter of 2025.

According to the national monthly agricultural batch wholesale standards, in April, May and June 2025, the wholesale prices of beef were 61.52 yuan/kg, 63.20 yuan/kg and 63.78 yuan/kg respectively. The quarterly average wholesale price was 62.83 yuan/kg, which was significantly higher than the 58.03 yuan/kg in the first quarter of that year.

However, the rally didn’t stop there. In the third quarter and fourth quarter of 2025, the national agricultural wholesale beef prices were 64.72 yuan/kg and 66.74 yuan/kg respectively.

After experiencing the peak consumption season in the autumn and winter of 2025, beef prices have risen further. In the first quarter of 2026, it exceeded 70 yuan for the first time, reaching 70.25 yuan/kg.

As of November 7, the price of agricultural wholesale beef has risen to 73.53 yuan/kg, a cumulative increase of 26.7% compared with the first quarter of 2025.

Prices at the wholesale end are transmitted downward to the consumer end, and beef consumption in restaurants and households slows down. The total beef consumption in the entire market slows down significantly.

According to public data, the total apparent beef consumption in the country will reach 10.812 million tons in 2025, a slight increase of 1.4% year-on-year. In the first 10 months of 2026, the total apparent beef consumption in the country is expected to be 8.92 million tons, only about 200,000 tons more than the same period last year.

牛不夠了

The freedom of beef gained in this round of low prices comes at the cost of continuous losses on the breeding side.

In the second half of 2023, the breeding side has been losing money for nearly two years in a row. Small and medium-sized retail investors have given priority to culling cows that can reproduce to stop losses. Together with the beef cattle that are sold normally, the supply of beef on the market has increased instantly.

Catering practitioner Zhang Mengzhe sensed changes in the beef market and opened the “Qianniu Knife Slag Beef Hot Pot” in Chengdu in 2023. After opening the franchise the following year, there were more than 100 stores nationwide.

The price per customer of Zhazha Beef Hotpot is 40-50 yuan, which is far lower than the average consumption level of Sichuan-style hotpot, and it quickly became popular. Along with this trend, Zhazha Beef Rice Noodles, Zhazha Beef Bibimbap and other related category stores have opened up everywhere.

While the meal was satisfying for a while, few people realized that behind the boom in affordable beef consumption, structural changes were taking place on the breeding side: a large number of fertile cows were being eliminated, which directly reduced the scale of future beef cattle slaughter, thereby affecting the supply of beef in the market.

As the basis of beef cattle production, fertile cows cannot be recovered immediately after being eliminated, and the number of calves born will decrease.

Generally, the entire cycle of beef cattle from pregnancy, birth to fattening and slaughter lasts for 27-28 months. Therefore, the effects of capacity contraction will not gradually appear until the second quarter of 2025.

By the end of the second quarter of 2025, the national cattle population was 99.92 million; by the end of the fourth quarter, the cattle population had dropped to 96.08 million, which was more than 4 million fewer than the 100.47 million at the end of 2024.

Huaan Securities research report shows that at the end of the first quarter of 2026, the domestic cattle population was 93.73 million, a year-on-year decrease of 4.0%, a decrease of 2.4% from the end of 2025, and a cumulative decrease of 10.8% from the end of 2023.

Starting from 2026, beef imports will implement a country-specific quota mechanism, quota tariffs will increase, and the landed cost of imports will rise accordingly. The volume and price of imported beef have been restricted.

Affected by multiple factors, the beef cattle market supply will continue to shrink in 2026, which may push beef prices to reach highs during the year.

Ordinary people bid farewell to the freedom of beef, but beef cattle farmers are ushering in a long-lost profit cycle. Changjiang Securities research report analysis shows that as of October 16, 2026, the profit of domestic self-breeding and self-raising beef cattle was 5825.35 yuan/head, a year-on-year increase of 104.6%; the profit of professional fattening cattle was 4438.74 yuan/head, an increase of 33.3%.

漲價之後

Beef prices continue to rise, and the consumer side has shown differentiation.

Beef-themed catering has adopted measures such as adjusting prices and reducing portions to absorb costs; some have even withdrawn one after another due to the cost pressure. The Zhazha beef hotpot track is cooling down rapidly; the 68-yuan all-you-can-eat beef ribs self-service brand “Lin Zhenzhen” has closed a large number of stores, and its operating entity, Changsha Lin Zhenzhen, was canceled in September last year.

On the household side, they are actively reducing the frequency and quantity of beef purchases, and pork and chicken with a unit price of about 10 yuan have become a wider choice.

The change in consumer preferences for beef categories has been evident last year. According to public data, in the first five months of 2025, the proportion of beef in meat consumption dropped from 8% in the same period last year to 6.5%.

However, beef consumption demand has not disappeared. Price rises have only suppressed consumer demand for affordable beef. High-end beef and high-quality household consumption are still supporting the market.

Although the price of beef is recovering, the willingness of the breeding industry to replenish cattle is not strong at this stage. The core constraint is feed cost.

At present, the cost prices of corn, fodder, labor, space, etc. are all at high levels, the comprehensive cost of breeding remains high, and profit margins continue to be squeezed.

According to a research report by Changjiang Securities, as the supply of beef cattle market continues to shrink, the supply gap is expected to further expand from 2027 to 2028, and the industry will enter a profit cycle of more than 2 years.

However, farmers are always in a wait-and-see mode, generally adopting conservative strategies and no longer blindly expanding production. Everyone still remembers the bleak market situation from 2023 to 2024: under the self-propagation and self-support model, the average loss is 500 yuan to 1,000 yuan.

China will implement country-specific quotas on imported beef from 2026 to 2028, and impose additional tariffs on imports that exceed the quota. The supply and demand pattern has allowed the beef breeding industry to maintain a high level of prosperity, and has also brought benefits to related listed companies.

In the first three quarters of 2026, Tianshan Biological (300313.SZ) operating income increased significantly by 470.06% year-on-year to 333 million yuan, with meat sales growth being an important driver.