Episode Details

HOST: Welcome to The Protein Pulse Podcast — your daily market update on all things protein. This is Thursday Margin Monitor for September 24, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Everybody has an answer for making beef cheaper. I’m just not convinced everybody understands what it takes to put it on the dinner plate — especially in Washington. Until you’ve shoveled inedible byproducts beneath a slaughter floor in a hundred-degree-plus heat just to keep the line running, or spent ten hours inventorying meat in a minus-ten-degree blast freezer while it’s over a hundred outside in West Texas, you don’t really understand the work behind putting meat on America’s dinner tables. You don’t forget those days. Now immigration enforcement is raising workforce concerns in southwest Kansas. Congress is debating beef imports while domestic fresh ninety C L sits ninety-one cents above imported lean. USDA is working to rebuild the cattle herd while suggesting consumers consider other proteins when beef gets expensive. And hell, if that isn’t enough, I paid six forty-nine a gallon for diesel yesterday here in Oklahoma. At this rate, I’m going to need a second mortgage just to fill up the truck. Everybody wants affordable beef. But before Washington starts telling everybody how to make it cheaper, maybe we ought to appreciate what it takes to put it on the damn plate.

HOST: Immigration enforcement raises workforce concerns across southwest Kansas beef processing as cattle slaughter remains down seven point six percent year-to-date. Feedlot losses deepen while packers maintain positive estimated margins. Congress enters the beef import debate with domestic fresh nineties priced ninety-one cents above imported lean. Diesel costs, Black Sea grain disruptions, and major protein investments in Southeast Asia add to an already busy week.

SHAWN: KMUW reported Thursday morning that New Frontiers, a southwest Kansas civic organization, alleged ice agents entered National Beef’s Dodge City facility Wednesday and removed employees from the production line. NPR’s Midwest Newsroom could not independently confirm that account. National Beef’s Liberal operation separately altered employee starting times. A Cargill employee in Dodge City described coworkers not reporting to work. Reuters reported traders linking some reduced slaughter to employees staying home. The amount of production lost specifically because of immigration enforcement remains unverified.

HOST: USDA estimated Wednesday’s cattle slaughter at ninety-four thousand, versus one hundred two thousand the previous Wednesday and one hundred twenty-one thousand nine hundred fourteen a year ago. Week-to-date two hundred ninety-nine thousand against three hundred fifty-one thousand one hundred nine last year. Year-to-date down seven point six percent. Those numbers establish the reduction in processing, but not its precise cause. Cargill’s Fort Morgan facility is recovering gradually. Steiner cited media reports placing operations at about twenty-five percent of expected capacity. Fed cattle slaughter totaled four hundred twenty-four thousand last week, down five point seven percent year over year. Steiner projects about four hundred sixteen thousand this week.

SHAWN: Sterling estimates feedlot losses widened to three twenty-three sixty-eight a head, versus three oh seven nineteen the previous week and a profit of six twenty-three eighty-two in the comparable week last year. Packer margins remained positive at one thirty-eight eighty, down from one seventy-seven sixteen. Cattle marketed last week carried an estimated two forty-five breakeven against an average Choice steer of two twenty-one eighty-eight. Hales estimates packer margins one twenty-five to one fifty. Steiner reports improved processing economics since early August through higher comprehensive beef values, l