THE PROTEIN PULSE — DRIVE TIME

Monday Market Open | September 21, 2026

HOST: Protein Pulse Drive Time. Monday Market Open, September twenty-first. From The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Where are the cattle going to come from? August placements down nine percent — about one hundred fifteen thousand head below expectations. Lowest August since nineteen ninety-six. Fresh nineties at four oh eight. Fifties under ninety cents. Another one hundred thousand tons of quota opens October first. There may be buying to do before the supply picture catches up. Six forty-four diesel can eat a good purchase quickly. An import offer isn’t much good if it arrives after you need the meat.

HOST: Theoretical seventy C L from equal nineties and fifties is about two forty-nine before freight and shrink. Not the same as a delivered plant cost. Still worth looking at.

SHAWN: Year-to-date cattle slaughter down seven point five. Beef production down five point one. Heavier carcasses help. They don’t replace every missing animal. Platts imported nineties about three nineteen C I F East Coast. Brazil still has China. Quota access is not a redirected load. Santa Teresa is slated September twenty-fourth. Those cattle still have to be fed.

HOST: Bellies dropped thirty cents. Hams and picnics went the other way. Chicken frames cheaper. Wings a dollar eleven. Don’t apply the cutout to every primal.

SHAWN: I’m looking at what I can buy now — and what I may wish I’d bought six months from now. Stay disciplined.

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

SHAWN: Stay disciplined.