THE PROTEIN PULSE

Thursday Margin Monitor | October 22nd, 2026

Full Executive Briefing — Spoken Script

HOST: Welcome to The Protein Pulse Podcast, your daily market update on all things protein. This is Thursday Margin Monitor for October 22nd, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: I don't care how strong the rib is if the rest of the carcass isn't pulling its weight. That's where I think this beef market is getting tested. Cattle remain scarce. That is real. But scarcity doesn't force a restaurant to keep a steak on the menu, a retailer to feature the same cut, or a grinder to ignore imported lean. Customers have choices, and they're using them. Look at pork. Bellies just took a hard hit. Chicken production is expanding. Both are competing for the same food dollar while beef packers are trying to protect the value of every animal they harvest. To me, this is where experience matters. You can't buy the headline and hope the customer follows. You have to know which product will move, what it really costs you, and how long you'll own it. The profit is in the decision, not the prediction.

HOST: A nationwide ready-to-eat meat and poultry recall has exposed a warehouse cold-chain failure, with affected product shipped to retail and foodservice customers. Restaurant performance also offers a revealing contrast. LongHorn Steakhouse gained guests while Olive Garden lost traffic. Meanwhile, Hormel is moving to expand in value-added chicken as wholesale beef and pork values diverge. Animal health and trade remain consequential. A Texas screwworm detection raises regional livestock-movement questions, while Brazil faces new poultry restrictions in some markets even as the European Union considers restoring access for Brazilian poultry. Across the industry, the bigger picture is clear. Food safety, shifting consumer demand, changing trade relationships and uneven protein markets are creating new challenges and opportunities for businesses throughout the supply chain.

SHAWN: The October 21st afternoon Choice cutout closed at three seventy-two fifty-nine, down seventy-one cents. Select fell six twenty to three fifty-five thirty-four, widening the Choice Select spread to seventeen twenty-five. Grade-flexible buyers should revisit offers. Choice heavy boneless ribeyes averaged fifteen fifty-four, while blended steer heifer cow-source eighty-one percent ground beef stood at three forty-five. Demand remains uneven across cuts. Grinding beef requires separate calculations. National fresh nineties averaged three eighty-five, eighty-fives three eighteen and fifties eighty-four. Grinders must evaluate formulation yields, origin, freight, storage and handling before switching supply. The five-area live F-O-B steer average for the week ended October 18th was two twenty-four nineteen. Wednesday cattle slaughter was estimated at one hundred ten thousand head, bringing the week-to-date total to three hundred twenty-seven thousand. Sterling estimates packer margins at positive one hundred fifty-five oh six per head and feedlot margins at negative two hundred forty-four seventy per head. Those are modeled results, not actual company earnings. December live cattle futures settled at two thirty-one thirteen, up ninety-five cents, while October feeder cattle reached three forty-seven eighty-three, up one ninety-three, on October 21st. Replacement costs remain firm despite wholesale weakness. In results released September 24th for the fiscal quarter ended August 30th, LongHorn Steakhouse posted six point two percent same-restaurant sales growth, including one point six percent higher guest counts and a four point five percent larger average check. Olive Garden increased same-restaurant sales one point one percent, but guest counts declined two point two percent while the average check rose three point four percent. The difference matters. Some diners