Book excerpt: Cattle pricing is part of the overall procurement process packers use to obtain the types of cattle that will produce beef to satisfy customers. pp. Meatpackers gather information from published price reports, internal operations, customers, other packers, and many other sources. The head buyer then sets an overall buy order from which field buyers negotiate with individual producers, taking account of cattle characteristics, ability of seller to negotiate, competition from other packers, transportation, and other factors.