THE PROTEIN PULSE PODCAST | Thursday Margin Monitor | September 17, 2026

THE PROTEIN PULSE PODCAST Thursday Margin Monitor | September 17, 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 Thursday Margin Monitor for September 17, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Feedlots lost three hundred seven dollars a head last week while beef packers made one hundred seventy-seven. Put that across a five-thousand-head yard and you’re talking about roughly one point five million underwater. Pork producers are still making thirty-eight a head, less than half a year ago, while Sterling has pork packers scraping out less than two dollars a head. What really has my attention is the grind. Domestic nineties are down to four twenty-eight. Fifties are under eighty-seven cents. South American nineties are still being shown around three ten to three twenty. Those numbers change blend calculations. The Fed raised rates another quarter point Wednesday. On twenty million dollars, that’s fifty thousand a year. That’s a pretty nice pickup truck disappearing from the P and L. If you’re still costing fall business using summer assumptions, sharpen the pencil.

HOST: Weekly packer margins have swung positive while feedlots remain more than three hundred a head underwater. Packers have reason to run cattle. Positive margins don’t create cattle. Year-to-date slaughter is down seven point seven percent — roughly one point six million head — following years of herd contraction. Mexican feeder flows remain constrained by the border situation. Pork producer margins have fallen from about eighty-two a head a year ago to thirty-eight, while packers are near breakeven. Wholesale pork has repriced substantially. Retail hasn’t. Chicken: retail and value-added keep finding winners while Tyson reports foodservice softness. A deteriorating corn outlook is rebuilding feed pressure. South American lean remains materially below competing origins, but the physical U.S. market still isn’t behaving as if the full three-hundred-thousand-ton headline volume is arriving.

SHAWN: Sterling estimates unhedged feedlot margins at minus three hundred seven nineteen a head, versus minus three twenty-eight last week and plus six sixty-eight a year ago. Beef packers improved to plus one seventy-seven sixteen from plus one seventy seventy-six. Oklahoma City seven-fifty to eight-hundred-pound feeder steers averaged three thirty-eight fifty-seven, putting Sterling’s current placement cost around three thousand three hundred ninety-nine a head and projected breakeven near two thirty forty-four. Sterling still projects the full-year twenty twenty-six packer margin at minus one fifty-three seventy-five. One profitable week doesn’t erase the cattle-cost problem.

HOST: Packers have more reason to run cattle today. Whether the cattle are there is another question. Years of drought and herd liquidation aren’t reversed overnight. Mexican cattle are only beginning to move again through Douglas. USDA cattle slaughter is down seven point seven percent year-to-date.

SHAWN: Wednesday produced a pretty good disconnect between paper and the physical market. October live cattle fell two twenty-five to two eighteen forty-five. October feeders lost four twenty to three twenty-nine sixty-five. Cash cattle didn’t confirm a comparable break. Choice boxed beef finished three seventy-five eighty-one. Select three fifty-four fifty-seven. Spread twenty-one twenty-four cents.

HOST: USDA called lean boneless sharply lower Wednesday. Fresh nineties averaged four twenty-eight. Eighty-fives three sixty-three sixty-seven. Fifties eighty-six eighty-three. At those values, a simple fifty-fifty blend of nineties and fifties puts the theoretical seventy C L raw-material cost around two fifty-seven a pound before processing, yield, freight, and other costs. Fed-cattle grind moved too. USDA reported eighty-one percent ground beef at three thirty-one oh seven on more than three hundred thirty-two thousand pounds. Summer grind assumptions no longer belong in fall costing.

SHAWN: Chicken is sending two different demand signals. Tyson has cited consumer softness in foodservice behind a lowered Chicken outlook. At retail, Amylu Foods reports dollar sales up one hundred seven percent year over year while expanding distribution from about eighty-seven thousand five hundred points in twenty twenty-five toward one hundred thirty thousand by the end of twenty twenty-six. Same species. Very different demand signal.

HOST: USDA’s corn-yield projection has fallen from an early trend estimate of one eighty-three to one seventy-eight point five. Good-to-excellent ratings have deteriorated to fifty-seven percent. Feed can represent as much as seventy percent of broiler and turkey production costs. One industry outlook puts twenty twenty-six twenty-seven cash corn in a five to five-fifty range. That’s going to get an integrator’s attention if foodservice is softer at the same time. Year-to-date chicken slaughter is up one point two percent — roughly eighty-one million more birds than this point last year.

SHAWN: Pork margins are getting tighter on both sides of the hog. Sterling’s farrow-to-finish margin fell to plus thirty-eight forty-five, down from forty-three forty-six last week, sixty eighty-nine a month ago, and eighty-one ninety-one a year ago. Packers averaged only plus one seventy a head. Wednesday’s corrected pork cutout closed eighty-six thirty-five, down a cent fifteen. Loins eighty-seven sixty-two. Bellies eighty-five thirty-eight. Picnics sixty-seven sixteen. Forty-twos seventy-three seventy-four. Seventy-twos ninety-five twenty-five.

HOST: Retail hasn’t followed wholesale. August retail por