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Published on:

1st Oct 2026

THE PROTEIN PULSE Drive Time — Thursday Margin Monitor | October 1, 2026,

Drive Time

HOST: Protein Pulse Drive Time. Thursday Margin Monitor, October first. From The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: My late Ag Econ instructor at Oklahoma State, Dr. Bob Ortman — God rest his soul — drilled one word into us: scarcity. That’s the cattle market. Slaughter is down nearly eight percent. The herd hasn’t rebuilt. Scarcity is real. But it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. At some price, buyers adapt. Imports substitute for domestic lean. Chicken substitutes for beef. Pork competes for the plate. Grinders reformulate. Fresh nineties are four oh nine. Imported nineties are roughly a dollar cheaper. Chicken breast is around one twenty-one. Pork cutout is eighty-five cents. The cattle are still scarce. What’s changing is the value of the next scarce pound when the market has alternatives.

HOST: Wednesday cattle kill ninety-eight thousand. Year to date down seven point eight percent. Choice three eighty-three. Select three sixty-one. Fresh fifties eighty-one cents, and USDA called lean trimmings sharply lower. Hales’ eighty-one percent ground beef is still about seven percent above last year. Demand didn’t disappear. Grinders just have more options. Another one hundred thousand metric tons of other-countries lean quota opens today. Argentina’s next twenty thousand metric tons opens too. Brazil has exhausted its China beef quota. Above-quota shipments into China now face an extra fifty-five percent tariff.

SHAWN: Brazil doesn’t have to send those pounds here to matter. It only has to compete harder somewhere else. Chicken still has the pounds — breast down about twenty-nine percent year over year, and Hormel is buying Brakebush for about one point oh five five billion. Pork is eighty-five cents today, less than a quarter of Choice, but the pig crop is down two percent and farrowings down three. Cheap today doesn’t necessarily mean cheap tomorrow. December corn fell twenty-one and a quarter to five dollars even after USDA found more corn than the trade expected. Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel is still near four ninety-six.

HOST: Domestic lean is moving lower. Imported lean still carries the discount. Cheap fifties are improving the blend. The pressure to chase protein has eased. The burden is shifting toward proving why the next pound deserves a premium.

SHAWN: Stay disciplined.

HOST: Protein Pulse Drive Time. Shawn Sparks, The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Stay disciplined.

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About the Podcast

Protein Pulse Podcast
Your Daily Market Update on All Things Protein.
The Protein Pulse Podcast delivers concise, commercially focused protein market intelligence for buyers, sellers, traders, procurement leaders, processors, and executives across the beef, pork, chicken, feed, and global protein markets. Each episode translates USDA data, market pricing, slaughter trends, trade flows, imports, feed costs, policy developments, and supply-chain signals into clear, practical market context. The focus is simple: cut through the noise, explain what the numbers mean, and give protein professionals the market context they need before making their next decision. Your Daily Market Update on All Things Protein.

About your host

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Shawn Sparks

Shawn Sparks is the founder of The Protein Pulse and a protein procurement, sourcing, and trading executive with more than two decades of experience across beef, pork, chicken, and the broader food supply chain.

His career has included senior procurement and purchasing leadership roles at some of the largest food companies in the industry, with responsibility for billions of dollars in annual protein spend and complex domestic and global sourcing programs.

Today, Shawn leads The Sparks Group, Inc. and Great Plains Protein LLC, where he works across protein sourcing, trading, procurement strategy, supplier development, and market intelligence.

Through The Protein Pulse Podcast, Shawn brings a practical, commercial perspective to the protein markets — translating USDA data, pricing, slaughter trends, imports, exports, feed costs, policy, and supply-chain developments into clear context for buyers, sellers, traders, processors, and industry leaders.

His focus is simple: cut through the noise, explain what the numbers mean, and help protein professionals understand what matters next.

The Protein Pulse — Your Daily Market Update on All Things Protein.