Episode Details

Monday Market Open | September 14, 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 Monday Market Open for September 14, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Oil jumped above one hundred three this morning after attacks shut the Saudi pipeline designed to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel futures moved above five dollars. That's not an energy story sitting off to the side of the protein market. That's freight, refrigeration, packaging, feed inputs, and every truck moving product from a plant to a customer. Take it one step further back. Harvest is underway across the Corn Belt. Diesel runs the equipment harvesting corn and soybeans and the trucks moving those bushels. Those crops still have to be processed into feed and moved again before an animal ever reaches a plant. We've spent a lot of time talking about the price of protein. This week, I'd pay just as much attention to the cost of producing and moving it.

HOST: Energy moved sharply higher Monday morning after another disruption to Middle East oil infrastructure. Beef buyers have some relief in the grind. Fresh ninety C L finished the week at four thirty-seven. Fifties at ninety-three cents. Imported lean remains competitive. The cattle margin keeps shifting: packers positive, feedlots deeply negative, cow-calf returns still strong. Pork weakened again, led by a sharp break in bellies. Chicken still has the clearest supply cushion, though HPAI across the northern Plains and Manitoba deserves attention.

SHAWN: Friday's boxed beef: Choice three seventy-five ninety-four, down two forty-three cents. Select three fifty-three thirteen, up a cent. The spread narrowed to twenty-two eighty-one cents. USDA established fresh nineties at four thirty-six seventy-four on one point five one million pounds. Eighty-fives three sixty-eight eighty-seven. Fifties ninety-three oh four on more than two point one seven million pounds. That puts the ninety-fifty spread at three forty-three seventy. With fifties below a dollar, the fat side is becoming increasingly important to grind economics.

HOST: Imported lean adds another variable. Brazilian nineties still compete at a significant discount. Landed values and actual September arrivals matter more to fall blend math.

SHAWN: The cattle margin has shifted. Sterling estimates packers around plus one hundred sixty-nine a head. Feedlot margins have deteriorated to about minus three hundred twenty-nine, with breakevens at two forty-two fifty-two. CattleFax estimates cited by Drovers put cow-calf returns near plus fourteen hundred a head on their annual cost methodology. Those series aren't directly comparable. The direction is clear. Profits haven't disappeared from beef. They have moved. The pressure today is sitting in the feedlot.

HOST: Cash last week: North mostly two eighteen to two nineteen. South two twenty-two to two twenty-three. Year-to-date cattle slaughter eighteen point nine eight four million head, down seven point six percent.

SHAWN: There is also a disconnect between wholesale and retail ground beef. Average retail ground beef hit a record seven sixteen in August, up seven point nine percent year over year, even though wholesale eighty-one C L coarse ground had already fallen sixteen percent from its June peak. Steiner expects more seasonal pressure on wholesale values in September and October, and notes retailers may use some of that decline to rebuild margins. Cheaper inputs and cheaper retail hamburger aren't necessarily the same thing.

HOST: Chicken. Whole bird one sixteen oh eight, down a third of a cent. Breasts one twenty-one thirty-five. Wings one ten oh two, down another two thirty-five ce