THE PROTEIN PULSE PODCAST

Taco Meat Tuesday | September 22, 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 Taco Meat Tuesday for September 22, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: We’ve gotten pretty good at producing protein. But have we gotten just as good at giving consumers what they actually want? Chad Groves at Seaboard made an interesting point this week. Pork has spent decades improving efficiency and producing more pounds, yet domestic consumption hasn’t moved much. Beef invested in eating quality and gave consumers a reason to pay more. Chicken made itself convenient, versatile, and affordable. Here’s where I think we need to pay attention. Consumers aren’t buying feed conversion, carcass yields, or plant efficiencies. They’re buying dinner. And they’re deciding whether that dinner was worth what they paid for it. We can keep chasing lower costs and more volume, but if we don’t give consumers a reason to choose our product, we’re eventually left competing on price. The next opportunity in protein isn’t necessarily producing more pounds. It’s making the pounds we produce worth more to the consumer.

HOST: August placements fell nine point two percent, while positive packer margins supported additional slaughter. Export sales strengthened. Chicken wholesale remains mostly steady. New HPAI detections are affecting commercial turkey production. The pork cutout improved as Seaboard raised a broader question about demand and pork’s value proposition. Rising Brazilian cattle costs and competing Chinese demand are changing imported beef replacement economics. A potential Brazil–Uruguay quota arrangement adds another consideration. Corn harvest is advancing, but crop conditions remain below last year.

SHAWN: The cattle pipeline is tightening even though feedlot inventories remain above last year. September first cattle-on-feed inventories increased seven-tenths of a percent. August placements declined nine point two percent. Cattle are staying on feed longer and producing heavier carcasses. The number on feed one hundred fifty days or longer increased five hundred fifty-four thousand head, or eighteen point three percent from last year. We’re getting more pounds from the cattle already in the system while fewer replacements enter it.

HOST: Hales estimates positive packer margins of seventy-five to one hundred fifty a head, depending on region. USDA finalized last week’s cattle slaughter at five hundred twenty-nine thousand, up twenty-four thousand from the previous week. Doug Wright reports southern cash around two twenty-six to two twenty-seven, with packers managing slaughter volumes to protect recently improved margins. Hales reported one thousand twenty-eight loads of boxed beef export sales last week, up thirty-six percent from the previous week and fifty-one percent year over year. That improvement is worth distinguishing from China’s reduced purchases of U.S. beef. One destination doesn’t tell the entire export-demand story.

SHAWN: Monday’s Choice cutout advanced to three seventy-six thirty-five. Select three fifty-five seventy-seven. Fresh nineties four nineteen eighty-three. Eighty-fives three forty-five oh four. Fifties eighty-three forty-one cents. Imported lean remains an important alternative for manufacturers, although forward replacement economics are changing.

HOST: Chicken remains mostly steady. USDA reports adequate whole-bird supplies and moderate trading. Breasts, tenders, wings, and dark meat generally held. Bone-in breasts and front halves continued trading at discounted prices. Chicken slaughter is running one point two percent above last year. New HPAI detections affected about one hundred forty thousand two hundred comme