Walmart has always been the place where you can get just about anything you want, and all of it with a smile.
Only I'm not sure the cows will be smiling at the company's latest outpost.
From Fox Business:
Walmart opened its first owned and operated case-ready beef facility in Kansas, eliminating middlemen in its supply chain to help control costs and ensure adequate supply as beef prices remain elevated.
The newly opened, 300,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in Olathe will package and distribute Angus cuts sourced directly from Sustainable Beef LLC to 600 stores across the Midwest region, which Walmart says will increase transparency and capacity in the beef supply chain to help the retailer meet customer demand. This immediately reduces the retailer's need to lean on an outside party to cut and package beef, which can lead to higher costs that can get passed onto consumers.
Now, it's not surprising that the company is aiming to "help control costs." Beef prices over the past few years have been, to put it VERY mildly, out of control:
This is potentially heartening news for those of us who get beef from Walmart. Stratifying the packing and shipping process could have a measurable effect on beef prices; most of the time that a company "eliminates middlemen," it eliminates a considerable number of costs as well, leading to lower prices in the store itself.
Whether or not the Kansas facility will do so remains to be seen, though if it does you could foresee the company replicating this model across the country — and maybe other corporations doing the same thing in a race to keep costs low. Great news for us!
The cows, however, could not be reached for comment...
Meanwhile, you got to give Walmart credit for designing its meat-production facility to look...pretty much exactly like a Walmart:
They went with what they know, and you can't blame em!
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