Where can I find historical formulated box beef prices going back to 2005?

The information you want is published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Marketing Service (AMS). The formulate reports for “NATIONAL WEEKLY BOXED BEEF CUTS – Formulated Sales” can be obtained by searching the AMS Web site and market news archives. Go to the following address

http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsmnpubs/mbeefw.htm

Look at the weekly formulated sales report. If this report is what you want, use the search function to bring up all of the previous reports. Click “Search” on the above page. Search for the report by entering “#Filename lm_xb454.txt” . Under “Last Modified” click the button “since GMT (yy/mm/dd)” and enter 05/01/01 to search for all reports from now to Jan. 1, 2005. The search results will provide a report for each week of the year since January 2005 (more than 100 reports).

USDA AMS also has reports for 2006 and 2005, titled “ANNUAL MEAT TRADE REVIEW Meat, Livestock, & Slaughter Data,” which provides tables with summaries of boxed meat price reports. I do not know if the summary is for formulated sales. You can access the 2006 report on the Web site at:

http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsmnpubs/msumm.htm

The 2005 report is also available but a search is necessary. I was able to search for the filename for 2005 and find the report. If you use the search on the AMS Market News Web site and search for the following “#Filename LS20050220ANCMTR.pdf” the report should come up on the search. The 2005 report is at the following address:

http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsmnpubs/meattrade/ls20050220ancmtr.pdf