Bill Bullard doesn’t mince words. In a recent video dispatch, the R-CALF USA CEO lays out what he calls the quiet collapse of the free market in U.S. beef—and the rise of corporate command-and-control.
At the center of it all? Walmart.
“Walmart is creating an end-to-end vertical supply chain for beef,” Bullard explains. “From genetics to slaughter to shelf. It’s a closed system. You’ll only get in by invitation.”
Translation: America’s largest grocer is now a vertically integrated meat cartel. It decides which ranchers get contracts. It controls production. It sets prices. And it can manipulate what you eat by raising the price of beef to push chicken or pork.
That’s not capitalism. That’s central planning—by a retail behemoth.
“Walmart will function as a capitalist—it’ll privately control its own beef commerce. But it’s not a free market. It’s highly centralized.”
And Walmart isn’t alone.
Bullard zooms out to expose the Big Four packers—who control over 80% of fed cattle slaughter—and the way they’ve already gamed the system:
- Suppressing domestic slaughter even when demand is strong
- Exporting U.S. beef while importing cheap foreign cuts
- Labeling imports as domestic to blur the origin
- Driving down cattle prices while retail prices soar
Opt-Out of Centralized Beef with Five Oaks Farm Wagyu. in Griswold, IA!
“If packers can make more exporting beef, they’ll do it—even if it tightens U.S. supplies,” Bullard warns. “And they’ll import foreign beef to backfill shelves, while ranchers suffer.”
It’s a rigged loop: underproduction, imports, mislabeling, profit.
And now Walmart’s entering the game—with its own rancher-exclusive beef supply, its own formula to maximize margins, and its own control over supply and demand.
Bullard calls it what it is: “A corporate management regime. Not a competitive market.”
What R-CALF USA Wants
R-CALF is demanding a return to market fairness:
- Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (MCOOL)
- Tariffs on beef imports to level the playing field
- Full enforcement of U.S. antitrust law
Because right now, the market doesn’t belong to the rancher. Or the consumer. It belongs to Walmart and the packer cartel.
“We want to take the managerial power away from the dominant packers and substitute it with competitive forces that let America rebuild its cattle industry.”
Watch the full video from Bill Bullard here
Join the movement at R-CALF USA
Find real beef from real ranchers—not Walmart’s supply chain.
BeefMaps.com — Rancher Direct Certified℠
0 Comments