Aaron Simon, owner of Farm to Fork meat processing, told CNN anchor Jake Tapper that President Donald Trump’s policies are hitting him at every level and putting his and other businesses in jeopardy.
The higher cost of livestock due to Trump’s inflation was driving up his retail prices as well as the company’s wholesale pricing for restaurants. Worse, Americans facing higher costs at grocery stores and gas pumps are having a more difficult time justifying the purchase of expensive proteins like beef.
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The higher costs, Simon added, are also discouraging livestock owners from “bringing in as many animals to have processed.”
“It's definitely a real issue,” Simon told Tapper on Tuesday. “We've had to lay off people. We've also had to raise our retail costs. You know, we're selling, for example, burger today at significantly more than it was a year ago today. And we're just trying to keep up with the high input costs, even though we're making less and less on it. There has to be a happy, a happy [medium] somewhere where people can still access good local fresh food and fresh meat. And at the same time, farmers and producers being paid fairly and treated square. But these high prices make that very difficult.”
In addition to livestock, Simon said Trump’s tariffs are causing “a big increase over the past year on our packaging materials, including plastic vacuum sealed bags and seasonings and spices” used in a variety of products.
“And there's also surcharges on the shipping,” complained Simon, whose company is based in Ripley, West Virginia. “Something that might use to be a $500 minimum order is now a $1,000 minimum order. And that's definitely adding a lot to the increased costs.”
West Virginia voted for Trump in the last election, with the race having been called early on Election Day and at a comfortable margin. But now Simon says Trump needs to have “boots on the ground” to hear the desperate pleas of ailing American growers and processors in the Trump economy.
“And you need to have people meeting with small meat processing facilities and producers like myself, as well as farmers and ranchers to work together to come up with a plan because you have to know what the issue is to allow you to build the framework to fix the issue,” said Simon.