Wholesale prices
How much does ground beef cost wholesale?
There is no single wholesale ground beef price, because "ground beef" is a family of products at a wide range of prices. The lean point, the source cut and whether it arrives as bulk chub or pre-formed patties move the number more than the vendor does. Convert everything to a delivered dollars-per-pound figure first; nothing else is comparable.
What this page is and is not
We do not have wholesale quote data. Nobody publishes a national wholesale price for ground beef that would mean anything on your invoice, and we are not going to invent one. The figure below is a retail-level US city average from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the same series behind our food cost index. Use it as a direction and a sanity check, never as a quote. The rest of this page is the part that is actually worth your time: how to read the quote you already have.
Where the tracked number sits
September 2026 · retail, US city average
$6.89
per lb
- 3 months
- −0.2%
- 12 months
- +10.1%
Your delivered price will not be this number. It will be a different number, in a different pack, at a different point in the chain, in your region — and that is fine, because the useful question is not does my price match a national average. It is did my price move the way the market moved. A quote that rose in a quarter when the tracked series fell −0.2% is a conversation you can have with evidence in your hand.
For what the last twelve months did to specific dishes, the ground beef price page runs the per-plate arithmetic off this same series.
The packs you are actually quoted on
A quote arrives as a case price. Nothing is comparable until it is converted — to another vendor, to last quarter, or to the series above. The right-hand column is that conversion done at the retail-level average, so it is a reference point with the arithmetic shown, not a price anyone should expect to pay.
| Pack | In tracked units | At the retail-level average |
|---|---|---|
Chub — 10 lb tube, fine or coarse grind The cheapest form per pound and the most labour on the line. Grind coarseness is a spec, not a default — ask for it. | 10 × lb | $68.85 |
Pre-formed patties — case by count Priced per case and quoted by patty count. Divide the case price by the case weight to get $/lb, then by the count to get cost per patty — the second number is the one that prices the burger. | — | not comparable |
Whole-muscle chuck, ground in house Only cheaper per usable pound when the trim genuinely comes from cuts you already break down. Buying chuck specifically to grind rarely beats a ground price once labour is counted. | — | not comparable |
What drives the spread
Four things separate any published average from the number on your invoice. Knowing which one a rep is moving is most of the skill.
Volume
Beef is one of the few lines where case-count volume genuinely moves the price, because the packer's own economics are volume-driven. It is also the line where a bigger drop is the most expensive mistake if your walk-in can't hold it at temperature — a discount you throw away in shrink is not a discount.
Region
Distance from the processor, and whether there is a local grinder competing for your business at all. A metro with an independent meat purveyor prices differently from one where the broadline is the only realistic option.
Grade & spec
The lean point is the price. 73/27, 80/20, 85/15 and 90/10 are four different products on four different price curves, and they do not move together. On top of that: fresh or frozen, grind coarseness, source cut (chuck, round, general trim), and any programme claim — Angus, grass-fed, source-verified. A quote that says only "ground beef" is not a quote.
Vendor
Broadline, dedicated meat purveyor, or club store. The purveyor will usually beat the broadline on beef and expects you to buy the rest of the protein programme with it; the club store has no delivery, no consistency guarantee and no recourse when the lean point drifts.
The public benchmark
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service publishes daily boxed beef cutout and beef trimmings reports, including the lean-trim items that ground beef is built from. That is the upstream number every grinder in the country prices against: ams.usda.gov/market-news.
We name these rather than restate them. A market level quoted from memory is a fabricated statistic, and the point of a public benchmark is that you can go and read today's.
What to ask for
- The lean point, in writing, on every quote —
80/20, not "ground beef". - Delivered price per pound, plus the case weight if it is a catch-weight item. A case price without a weight is not a price.
- Fresh or frozen, grind size, and the source cut.
How to tell whether your quote is reasonable
- 1Convert to $/lb, always. Case ÷ case weight. Patties: case ÷ case weight, then confirm the count so you also have cost per patty.
- 2Compare lean points on the cooked plate, not the raw invoice. A leaner blend costs more per pound and loses less on the grill, and the two partly cancel. Run both through the yield calculator before assuming the cheaper number is the cheaper burger.
- 3Sanity-check the move, not the level. The series on the ground beef price page is retail and national — useless as a quote, genuinely useful as an answer to "is everyone's beef up this quarter, or just mine".
Red flags
- Catch-weight cases quoted as a case price. A bigger box at the same case price is a price cut; a smaller one at the same case price is a rise. Neither is visible unless you track $/lb — see catch weight.
- A lean point that changed on the same item code. This is the single most common silent cost increase in a burger programme, and the patty looks identical raw.
- "Ground chuck" and "ground beef" used interchangeably in a conversation and differently on the invoice.
Terms on this page
Catch weight
Items priced by actual weight rather than by a fixed case quantity — most proteins and cheeses.
Yield percentage
The share of a purchased ingredient that survives trimming, peeling and cooking to reach the plate.
Edible portion vs. as-purchased
AP is what you paid the supplier; EP is what the usable part actually costs after loss.
A good quote still gets worse without anyone deciding to.
The negotiation is the easy part. What costs money is the eleven months afterwards, when the case weight drifts, the lean point changes, the slice count moves and every recipe built on the old number keeps quietly reporting the old cost. Marji reads the invoice, recosts every dish the ingredient touches, and tells you which menu price stopped working.
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