Ground Beef Prices

Source: USDA AMS National Daily Boxed Beef Cutout, ground beef in 10-pound chubs (LM_XB403). Click any row for the full chart, multi-year history, and seasonal context.

Ground beef is a blend spec, not a cut. The label is the lean share: 81 percent ground beef is 81 percent lean and 19 percent fat, made by grinding lean and fat trim together to hit that number. The 73, 75, 85, 90 and 93 percent lines work the same way. Ground chuck and ground round name the primal the meat came from instead. So a ground beef price is mostly the price of the trim behind it. Made from 90s and 50s alone, 81 percent works out to roughly 78 percent 90s and 22 percent 50s, and the 90s cost far more per pound, so lean drives the cost. A grinder can also reach 81 percent by blending a whole muscle with 50s; the Make your own 81% card prices that against buying the print. USDA prints the wholesale ground beef lines daily on its boxed beef report, LM_XB403, as 10-pound chubs. Ground beef also leads USDA's weekly retail feature report: it drew more ads than any other beef section in 285 of 453 weeks from 2018 to October 2026.