THE PROTEIN PULSE

Taco Meat Tuesday | October 13th, 2026

Full Executive Briefing — Spoken Script

HOST: Welcome to The Protein Pulse Podcast, your daily market update on all things protein. This is Taco Meat Tuesday for October 13th, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: The next move in protein may not come from Chicago or the Southern Plains. It may come from overseas. Brazil is looking for new beef customers as China limits imports and Europe closes its doors. China is buying less foreign pork, and Spain is redirecting product following disease-related trade restrictions. That's a lot of meat looking for a home, and buyers should be paying attention. I'm not suggesting we'll suddenly see cheaper beef or pork. But when major exporters start competing for different customers, pricing opportunities can develop. And those opportunities may show up where we least expect them. We've been talking about cattle numbers long enough. This week I'm more interested in who is selling, who's buying, and whether those shifts start changing the offers we see here at home. Remember, sometimes the biggest opportunities aren't created by what happens here, but by what's changing somewhere else.

HOST: Pork opened the week with a two forty-seven cutout increase. Choice beef strengthened, and changing international trade conditions are creating new questions about protein competition. JBS is highlighting opportunities in prepared protein, while revised USDA hog-farrowing comparisons deserve attention heading into 2027. For buyers, the immediate priorities are lean-beef replacement costs, whether pork's wholesale recovery holds, and how changing consumer and export demand affect purchasing opportunities.

SHAWN: Choice boxed beef advanced two twenty-one Monday to three seventy-five fifty-six. Select declined seventeen cents to three fifty-four thirteen. The Choice Select spread widened to twenty-one forty-three. December live cattle finished at two twenty-six sixty, down forty-five cents, while the latest five-area weekly live F-O-B average stood at two twenty twenty. Cattle slaughter remains seven point four percent below last year. Fresh domestic nineties averaged three ninety-six. Eighty-fives at three thirty-four. Sixty-fives at one fifty-two. Fifties at eighty-seven cents. Earlier imported frozen nineties indications near three seventeen to three nineteen suggest a market worth watching, although those assessments cannot be directly compared with Monday's fresh domestic quotations. At the same time, Brazilian exporters face changing market access in China and Europe. That could affect competition in international beef markets, although it does not establish additional U.S. availability or lower domestic prices. USDA forecasts U.S. beef imports declining three percent in 2027 under current quota assumptions. For ground-beef processors, the opportunity is to watch whether international competition translates into attractive delivered quotations. The spread between published market assessments is not necessarily the spread available to an individual buyer.

HOST: Chicken continues to provide competitive purchasing options, with young-chicken slaughter running one point three percent above last year. USDA's October 5th through 9th weekly averages placed boneless skinless breasts at one eighteen, tenderloins at one thirteen fifty, whole wings at one ten sixty, boneless skinless thighs at one sixty-eight, and bulk leg quarters at fifty-three cents. An interesting development is coming from JBS, where prepared-foods leadership sees growing protein interest among younger consumers and GLP-1 users as an opportunity across chicken, pork and beef. That makes product innovation and convenience increasingly relevant to processors and foodservice operators. Consumer interest in protein may create opportunities beyond traditiona