THE PROTEIN PULSE PODCAST

Thursday Margin Monitor | September 17, 2026

Your daily market update on all things protein

HOST: Welcome to The Protein Pulse Podcast — your daily market update on all things protein. This is Thursday Margin Monitor for September 17, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Feedlots lost three hundred seven dollars a head last week while beef packers made one hundred seventy-seven. Put that across a five-thousand-head yard and you’re talking about roughly one point five million underwater. Pork producers are still making thirty-eight a head, less than half a year ago, while Sterling has pork packers scraping out less than two dollars a head. What really has my attention is the grind. Domestic nineties are down to four twenty-eight. Fifties are under eighty-seven cents. South American nineties are still being shown around three ten to three twenty. Those numbers change blend calculations. The Fed raised rates another quarter point Wednesday. On twenty million dollars, that’s fifty thousand a year. That’s a pretty nice pickup truck disappearing from the P and L. If you’re still costing fall business using summer assumptions, sharpen the pencil.

HOST: Weekly packer margins have swung positive while feedlots remain more than three hundred a head underwater. Packers have reason to run cattle. Positive margins don’t create cattle. Year-to-date slaughter is down seven point seven percent — roughly one point six million head — following years of herd contraction. Mexican feeder flows remain constrained by the border situation. Pork producer margins have fallen from about eighty-two a head a year ago to thirty-eight, while packers are near breakeven. Wholesale pork has repriced substantially. Retail hasn’t. Chicken: retail and value-added keep finding winners while Tyson reports foodservice softness. A deteriorating corn outlook is rebuilding feed pressure. South American lean remains materially below competing origins, but the physical U.S. market still isn’t behaving as if the full three-hundred-thousand-ton headline volume is arriving.

SHAWN: Sterling estimates unhedged feedlot margins at minus three hundred seven nineteen a head, versus minus three twenty-eight last week and plus six sixty-eight a year ago. Beef packers improved to plus one seventy-seven sixteen from plus one seventy seventy-six. Oklahoma City seven-fifty to eight-hundred-pound feeder steers averaged three thirty-eight fifty-seven, putting Sterling’s current placement cost around three thousand three hundred ninety-nine a head and projected breakeven near two thirty forty-four. Sterling still projects the full-year twenty twenty-six packer margin at minus one fifty-three seventy-five. One profitable week doesn’t erase the cattle-cost problem.

HOST: Packers have more reason to run cattle today. Whether the cattle are there is another question. Years of drought and herd liquidation aren’t reversed overnight. Mexican cattle are only beginning to move again through Douglas. USDA cattle slaughter is down seven point seven percent year-to-date.

SHAWN: Wednesday produced a pretty good disconnect between paper and the physical market. October live cattle fell two twenty-five to two eighteen forty-five. October feeders lost four twenty to three twenty-nine sixty-five. Cash cattle didn’t confirm a comparable break. Choice boxed beef finished three seventy-five eighty-one. Select three fifty-four fifty-seven. Spread twenty-one twenty-four cents.

HOST: USDA called lean boneless sharply lower Wednesday. Fresh nineties averaged four twenty-eight. Eighty-fives three sixty-three sixty-seven. Fifties eighty-six eighty-three. At those values, a simple fifty-fifty blend of nineties and fifties puts the theoretical seventy C L raw-material cost around two fifty-seven a pound before processing, yield, freight, and other costs. Fed-cattle grind moved too. USDA reported eighty-one percent ground beef at three thirty-one oh seven on more than three hundred thirty-two thousand pounds. Summer grind assumptions no longer belong in fall costing.

SHAWN: Chicken is sending two different demand signals. Tyson has cited consumer softness in foodservice behind a lowered Chicken outlook. At retail, Amylu Foods reports dollar sales up one hundred seven percent year over year while expanding distribution from about eighty-seven thousand five hundred points in twenty twenty-five toward one hundred thirty thousand by the end of twenty twenty-six. Same species. Very different demand signal.

HOST: USDA’s corn-yield projection has fallen from an early trend estimate of one eighty-three to one seventy-eight point five. Good-to-excellent ratings have deteriorated to fifty-seven percent. Feed can represent as much as seventy percent of broiler and turkey production costs. One industry outlook puts twenty twenty-six twenty-seven cash corn in a five to five-fifty range. That’s going to get an integrator’s attention if foodservice is softer at the same time. Year-to-date chicken slaughter is up one point two percent — roughly eighty-one million more birds than this point last year.

SHAWN: Pork margins are getting tighter on both sides of the hog. Sterling’s farrow-to-finish margin fell to plus thirty-eight forty-five, down from forty-three forty-six last week, sixty eighty-nine a month ago, and eighty-one ninety-one a year ago. Packers averaged only plus one seventy a head. Wednesday’s corrected pork cutout closed eighty-six thirty-five, down a cent fifteen. Loins eighty-seven sixty-two. Bellies eighty-five thirty-eight. Picnics sixty-seven sixteen. Forty-twos seventy-three seventy-four. Seventy-twos ninety-five twenty-five.

HOST: Retail hasn’t followed wholesale. August retail pork averaged four eighty-nine a pound and has averaged four ninety-one through the first eight months. Last week’s cutout was sixteen percent below a year ago. The national base hog price was thirteen percent lower. Early-weaned pigs have gone from nearly one hundred a head in February to about forty-one. Forty-pound feeders from roughly one twenty-seven to fifty-six. The producer is still making money in Sterling’s model. The cushion is less than half what it was a year ago.

SHAWN: August meat sales don’t support a simple “consumer is weak” story. Total retail food and beverage units declined two point one percent, but inside protein it’s all over the board. Ground beef pounds were essentially flat. Ground chicken and pork remained stronger. Processed-meat pounds fell five point six. Frankfurters dropped ten point five. Foodservice is showing more pressure, with Q S R traffic down two point six percent year over year in late August. Kraft Heinz says Oscar Mayer accounted for roughly sixty percent of its first-half share losses, with packaging problems and lost shelf distribution contributing. Then put Amylu’s plus one hundred seven percent retail growth beside it. The consumer hasn’t quit buying protein. They’re moving around the meat case — and between channels.

HOST: South American lean remains one of the more compelling procurement spreads. Recent East Coast indications put South American nineties around three ten to three twenty, versus about three thirty-nine to three forty-two for Australian-New Zealand nineties. On ninety-five C L cow, the origin spread has recently been roughly forty to fifty cents. On a forty-thousand-pound load, fifty cents is twenty thousand dollars. You still have to account for spec, fresh versus frozen, freight, duty treatment, delivery terms, and basis. Twenty thousand dollars gets my attention.

SHAWN: The anticipated import surge still isn’t showing up in physical trade. S and P Global reported thin U.S. lean activity and a Brazilian packer saying U.S. demand had not accelerated following the three-hundred-thousand-ton tariff announcement. S and P Global Energy CERA suggested actual imports could be as low as one hundred twenty thousand metric tons during the window. That’s their number, not mine. Price the origin. Price the lean point. Price the basis. Price the arrival. Don’t price the headline.

HOST: Policy. The Senate Agriculture Committee advanced the Agriculture Act of twenty twenty-six Wednesday. Country-of-origin labeling, Proposition Twelve, and SNAP are worth following as it moves. USDA announced up to fifty million dollars for its Stand-Up Program to help states establish or expand meat and poultry inspection. Fifty million sounds substantial. National slaughter puts it in perspective. The two smallest processor categories represent ninety point eight percent of processors but only two point two percent of cattle slaughter. Oklahoma State’s Derrell Peel estimates adding only one percent to national cattle slaughter would require roughly one hundred four additional plants processing fifty head a week. Small processing can make a real difference locally. It doesn’t replace national slaughter capacity.

SHAWN: December corn five thirty-four and a quarter, down a cent and a half. November soybeans thirteen twenty and a half. October W T I dropped three forty to one oh two forty-three. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel remained five twenty-four a gallon. Don’t confuse lower crude with cheap refrigerated freight. Another quarter point on twenty million is fifty thousand a year. That’s real money when you’re carrying inventory.

HOST: Wednesday slaughter. Cattle one hundred two thousand. Hogs four hundred eighty-eight thousand. Chickens thirty-five point seven oh eight million. Year-to-date: cattle down seven point seven. Hogs down one percent. Chicken up one point two. Roughly one point six million fewer cattle and eighty-one million more chickens through federally inspected slaughter versus twenty twenty-five.

SHAWN: Bottom line. Better packer margins don’t create more cattle. Pork at retail hasn’t followed wholesale lower. Chicken depends on where you’re selling it. Imported lean still has origin spreads worth thousands of dollars per load. The board tells you where the market traded. Your margin depends on what you bought, where it came from, how you blended it, how long you carried it, and where you sold it. That’s the math worth doing this morning. Stay disciplined.

HOST: That’s The Protein Pulse Thursday Margin Monitor for September 17, 2026. From Shawn Sparks and The Sparks Group. For sourcing, procurement, and market intelligence, visit TheSparks.Group.

SHAWN: Stay disciplined.