What beef sells for at the store

Grass-fed, organic and antibiotic-free beef is advertised about +36% above conventional — and the premium is biggest on the cheapest cuts. Round carries +81.8%, while Other/Misc. carries −17.1%.

That is the mirror image of what grading pays. Choice beats Select by roughly $94 on the rib and $57 on the loin, while Select is dearer on chuck and round — grade pays in the middle meats, and the label pays at the ends. The middle eight comparisons in ten fall between −14.3% and +89.7%, so this is a tendency and not a rate card.

For every cut, USDA also files the highest price any store advertised conventional at that week. In 51% of cases the grass-fed price is above even that — typically by 19%. In those cases no store in the country was selling conventional that dear, so an expensive store cannot be the explanation. That part of the premium is the beef.

The rest we cannot settle. Where a grass-fed price lands inside the range conventional was already selling for, it might be the label and it might be the store, and we are not going to guess. Read the +36% as a real tendency with solid ground under about half of it — not a price list.