AbstractThe southeastern states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida currently export the majority of their feeder calves and import processed fed beef to satisfy consumer demand. The objective of this article is to determine the least‐cost routes of backgrounding, feeding/finishing, slaughtering/processing, and distributing boxed beef for these southeastern states. A spatiotemporal model is developed which determines the optimal routes for all production, processing, and distribution phases. Results indicate that the least‐cost solution could be reached by substantially expanding production, in all phases, in southern Alab