WATCH: Soaring Beef Prices

If you like barbequing steak or burgers, you better be prepared to pay more for your red meat.

Beef prices are at record high levels.

While it’s obviously not good news for consumers, cattle ranchers are ecstatic.

The soaring prices reflect a low supply of cattle, coupled with an increased demand for beef – both nationally and internationally.

Don Raffan with Valley Auction, a livestock auction based in Spallumcheen, says the price of butcher cows has recently increased from 50 cents a pound, to over a dollar a pound.

Raffan says it’s the first time in a decade ranchers have emerged from the lean fiscal years created by the mad cow crisis of 2003.