THE PROTEIN PULSE PODCAST

Monday Market Open | September 28, 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 28, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Here is the irony in beef this morning: we are finally reopening another valve for cattle supply just as a new operational risk is showing up at the packing plant. Santa Teresa is open again. That should eventually help feeder availability, but four hundred eight head on day one is not enough to change the market. At the same time, stepped-up federal immigration enforcement is disrupting labor and cattle movement across parts of the Southern Plains. Whether you support the policy or not, delayed cattle and reduced plant staffing can mean fewer kills, fewer boxes, and higher cost per head. Two days do not make a trend. But in a cattle market already running short on headcount, it does not take much operational disruption to matter.

HOST: The most interesting beef number this morning may not be total slaughter. Hales Trading estimates heifer slaughter at one hundred thirty-four thousand five hundred head — the lowest non-holiday weekly total since May ninth, twenty twenty. Since the beginning of the year, Hales estimates heifer slaughter is eight hundred eleven thousand head below last year, compared with steer slaughter down five hundred fifty-two thousand. That does not prove the herd rebuild is fully underway. After months of talking about what eventually has to happen, fewer females are actually entering slaughter.

SHAWN: Hales believes some beef heifers are already being retained and says retention could accelerate in twenty twenty-seven if winter and spring moisture supports grass. Weekly cattle slaughter fell to four hundred eighty-four thousand, down eight point five percent on the week and thirteen point four year over year. Beef production fell to four hundred thirty point one million pounds, down eight point four on the week and twelve point five year over year. Year-to-date cattle slaughter twenty million, down seven point seven. Year-to-date beef production seventeen point eight five one billion pounds, down five point three.

HOST: The grind. Weekly processing-beef averages. Fresh nineties four ten ninety-three, up two fifty-three cents on the week. Eighty-fives three sixteen sixty-four, down twelve oh three cents. Fifties eighty-seven seventy-seven cents, down a cent nineteen. The ninety-fifty spread is three twenty-three sixteen a pound. Cheap fat does not make lean cheap. Monday’s formulated-sales report: fourteen point four six million pounds of formulated fresh fifty percent trim at eighty-eight eighty-five cents.

SHAWN: Lower kills did not hurt packer economics last week. Hales estimates calculated margins at plus one sixty to plus one eighty-five a head, roughly forty dollars stronger on the week and the sixth consecutive week of positive calculated packer margins. Hales’ weekly Choice average was three seventy-seven fifty, up three twenty-four from the previous week. Fewer cattle through the plant can tighten beef availability. If boxed-beef values strengthen faster than cattle costs, packers can still improve margins on lower throughput.

HOST: Santa Teresa is moving Mexican cattle again. Four hundred eight head on the first day is not enough volume to materially change feeder availability. The reopening matters. The volume matters more. The Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Kansas Livestock Association, and Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association reported workforce disruption and delays moving thousands of cattle to processors amid federal immigration enforcement. D H S said ice was not conducting worksite operations in Kansas. The response cited by the