Oxtail prices skyrocket in the USA

Poor people getting priced out

In reply to FanAttick

Back in the 80s a former co-worker, Richard Strauss, now deceased, told me he grew up in Jamaica, Queens with his parents operating a small 'convenience' store. Oxtail was the cheapest meat product carried there, so that's what the family was subject to eating. He, however, developed a fondness for the 'taste' and continued into adulthood with the occasional want of a good oxtail meal.

To his surprise, however, the price of oxtail had risen from the cheapest to just about the most expensive. Actually, the most expensive when you consider the percentage of the bones on the total purchase.

In reply to FanAttick
Mi nuh eat red meat but poor peeps in di yard have been priced out ages ago.
Indeed dem price we out a tangerines

In reply to Drapsey

Saltfish was ahead of oxtail in price until recently! The average Jamaican can't afford the national dish, madness!

In reply to Drapsey

So true, the average price of an oxtail meal, 3 or 4 likkle piece of oxtail wid a cup a rice is $26 US, that’s around Ja 4,000$. Two years ago that was between $10 and $13 US.

In reply to XDFIX

What is expensive is salted cod, but the other salted fish are reasonable. I find a lot of people who can't tell the difference.

In reply to Drapsey



Honestly I don't understand how people could buy boneless meat.

Meat must have bone in it

In reply to Prako


I agree.

I just love to 'dig' all the meat out from the 'nooks and crannies' of those bones. But weight-wise, oxtail is made up of more than 60% bones, so it looks like that's mostly what we're paying for.

If you need boneless meat buy Bulli beef!

when we just came to this place local abattoirs use to throw it away and for it to not look so bad they would charge you 10 - 15 cents a pound. And you would get some huge hock. Now you got to walk past it in the West Indian stores and cut u eye.

In reply to Drapsey

In the 70s I would get oxtail for pennies ,very cheap in Brooklyn with Tripe and cow foot, heel to to the Yanks,
thrown in free at a local butcher in Bed Stuy.

I have not bought oxtail for donkeys' years here in Philly.
Used to go to the farm near Philly and get me a goat or two for $25-30 each back in the early 80s.
Would also collect the feet and heads and tripes of others butchered at the site as the buyers,non Jamaicans ,did not
want those and the butcher was glad to get rid of those parts and allowed us to clean them at the site too.

Those goats are now probably over $400.00 now as five years ago on my last trip I paid $275 for one.
Us Yardies are mainly responsible for the Great Increase. The Businesses all caught on to the cravings
of Jamaicans. By the end of the 70s the butcher in Brooklyn began selling the Heels and other parts
But such is life..I was born the right time

In reply to camos

Gave up on Bully beef many decades ago...suspect that it was not all beef.

In reply to hubert

The fat is a problem, but it is as safe as anything else in the food supply.

In reply to camos

Do you think store operators care about the difference in kind in modern Jamaica or anywhere? For them, at any price, codfish is saltfish and saltfish is codfish!

There is a calypso song, I think, that says capitalism gone mad!

In reply to FanAttick

Not only USA man,when I see the price in the Turkish meat shop I jess walk pass it like ah exam.

In reply to camos

In England all I ever see in shops is Saltfish but come from China, so me nah go buy that,China goin send any kyna fish.