Sustained high prices for beef are leading to creative changes to restaurant menus – such as the addition of goat meat, “an alternative, and normally budget-friendly, option to beef,” reports Reuters. “Menus using goat meat are leaping beyond ethnic restaurants to high-end outlets ….” An official at a meat distributorship says goat meat is available for $2.75 a pound, compared to beef at $3.50. Reuters says there is a demographic factor in the rising demand for goat as well, with a growing population of Americans with Middle Eastern heritage. Goat also is popular in Latin and South American cuisine.
The USDA’s annual Sheep and Goats inventory says there were 2.68 million head of goats in the country at the start of this year, a fraction of the 89.8 million cattle listed in the Cattle inventory.