Episode Details

Wednesday Watchlist | September 9, 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 Wednesday Watchlist for September 9, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Yesterday I said quit watching nineties by themselves and watch the blend. One day later, the lean side moved.

HOST: Fresh domestic nineties averaged four thirty-eight Tuesday, more than ten cents below last week's average. Brazilian ninety C L is being indicated near three oh three to three oh five at the port.

SHAWN: That doesn't mean Brazilian beef automatically trades here. Sellers are watching China while U.S. buyers wait to see where domestic lean settles. And fifties didn't establish Tuesday, so we still don't have the other half of the blend equation.

HOST: That's the post-Labor Day market.

SHAWN: The imported lean is cheap enough to change the grind equation. Now we need to see whether U.S. buyers actually buy it—and what that does to domestic nineties and fifties. The calendar changed. Now price discovery has to catch up.

HOST: Beef first. The blend started moving.

SHAWN: Tuesday's fresh ninety C L national average was four thirty-eight, versus last week's four forty-nine weekly average. USDA reported more than seven hundred thirty-two thousand pounds of fresh ninety trade. Fresh eighty-fives averaged three fifty-five. Fresh fifties did not establish.

HOST: Offshore, the discount is large.

SHAWN: Brazilian nineties near three oh three to three oh five at the U.S. port. Australia-New Zealand around three twenty-three C I F East Coast. These aren't directly interchangeable quotes, but the discount to domestic fresh lean is substantial. The important word is indications. Actual business remains limited. U.S. trimming imports through August twenty-ninth reached about six hundred seventy-three thousand five hundred metric tons, up sixteen point five percent year over year. Tight cattle supplies haven't disappeared. Year-to-date slaughter remains well below last year. Heavier carcasses are cushioning some of the production decline.

HOST: Takeaway on lean.

SHAWN: Brazilian lean is cheap enough to change blend economics. Until U.S. buyers start booking meaningful volume, we don't know how much of that discount works into domestic nineties—or the finished grind.

HOST: Chicken. More supply. Uneven demand.

SHAWN: Ready-to-cook production is tracking roughly three to four percent above twenty twenty-five. Tenders and wings—two foodservice-heavy cuts—are tracking toward their lowest annual average prices since twenty eleven. Inflation-adjusted restaurant sales were down about one percent year over year from March through May. But Tuesday's physical market was a counterpoint. USDA called chicken mostly steady, adequate supplies, moderate demand. Tender demand increasing. Dark meat clearing well. Exports active.

HOST: HPAI is back on the radar. About two hundred fifty thousand six hundred commercial birds in recent Upper Midwest detections, ahead of fall migration.

SHAWN: More chicken is coming. The pressure isn't uniform. Foodservice-heavy cuts remain the weak spot. Tenders, dark meat, and exports are showing better current demand.

HOST: Pork. More pounds won't fix demand.

SHAWN: Bellies grabbed the headline Tuesday, dropping nearly sixteen cents. That's not the larger story. Pork's share of U.S. consumer food spending fell from four point six percent in two thousand one to three point three percent in twenty twenty-five. Year-to-date hog slaughter is belo