THE PROTEIN PULSE - Thursday Margin Monitor | November 5th, 2026

THE PROTEIN PULSE Thursday Margin Monitor | November 5th, 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 November 5th, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Stop managing your business by someone else's headline. Seaboard loses eighty million dollars in a quarter while a weekly model shows pork packers making nearly seventeen dollars a head. Sounds like somebody's numbers are wrong, doesn't it? They're not. They're measuring two different things. One is a company's actual quarterly performance. The other is an estimate of current packing economics. Confuse the two, and you'll make bad decisions. Beef is telling us the same story. Choice grade cutouts are sliding, yet ribs are near six seventy-seven while rounds are below two ninety. Same animal. Two very different markets. I don't care how attractive an industry average looks if the specific product I'm buying or selling tells a different story. Headlines tell you where to look. They don't tell you what your business is worth. The profit isn't in chasing the average. It's in knowing the cut, the cost, and what you can actually buy, sell, and deliver. The fun at MICA is over. Time to get back to work. Call me if you need help.

HOST: Seaboard's pork business has swung from a third-quarter operating profit to an eighty million dollar loss, while the national pork cutout fell below seventy. Brazil's Newcastle disease restrictions have disrupted poultry cargo already at sea, exposing the gap between certification at departure and import eligibility at arrival. Beef cutouts weakened even as pricing varied sharply by primal and trim specification. China's beef quota is redirecting shipments, while market reports linked part of crude's fall below ninety a barrel to expectations of Iran-war de-escalation after the U.S. election. New World screwworm infestations reached one hundred thirteen confirmed animals in the Southwest. USDA export data show softer pork bookings but rising beef shipments.

SHAWN: Choice grade boxed beef declined two seventy-three to three sixty-two fifty Wednesday. Select grade fell one seventy-two to three fifty-six sixty-five, narrowing the spread to five eighty-five. Choice grade ribs stood at six seventy-six sixty-seven versus two eighty-nine thirty for rounds. Forward-order interest favored ribs and chucks over rounds, loins and briskets, leaving buyers with markedly different negotiating leverage by primal. Fresh domestic nineties averaged three sixty-eight. Eighty-fives three oh seven. And fifties eighty-eight. Platts assessed imported nineties C-I-F U.S. East Coast at three nineteen on November 3rd. A November 4th Brazil-origin nineties trade was reported at three dollars F-O-B U.S. East Coast port of entry, in November truckload quantities. Neither import benchmark includes the buyer's onward plant-delivery cost. Wednesday's estimated cattle slaughter was one hundred nine thousand head, with year-to-date slaughter seven point one percent below last year. Negotiated live F-O-B steers grading over eighty percent Choice averaged two seventeen fifteen. For the week ended October 31st, Sterling modeled feedlot losses of three hundred twenty-eight forty-five a head and beef-packer losses of three sixty-five a head. U.S. beef net export sales were eleven thousand metric tons for October 23rd to 29th, unchanged on the week but twenty-nine percent below the four-week average. Shipments rose four percent to thirteen thousand four hundred metric tons, led by South Korea and Japan. Stronger current movement than future booking momentum.

HOST: Seaboard's pork segment swung from a fifty-eight million dollar profit a year ago to an eighty million dollar third-quarter operating loss, a one hundred thirty-eight million dollar deterioration. Quarterly sales fell to four hundred sixty-one million dollars. Wednesday's pork cutout lost three fourteen to sixty-nine twenty-nine. Bellies fell eight sixty-one to sixty-seven thirty-five and picnics seven ninety-four to forty-nine ninety-eight. Loins declined just one fourteen to seventy-three fifty. Bacon and further-processing exposure differs substantially from loin purchasing. Sterling's weekly model estimates farrow-to-finish losses of fourteen fifty-six a head but pork-packer profits of sixteen eighty-two a head, different from Seaboard's actual quarterly results. National negotiated carcass-base hogs averaged forty-two forty-nine, down two ninety. Estimated hog slaughter was four hundred ninety-five thousand head. U.S. pork net export sales totaled thirty-seven thousand three hundred metric tons for October 23rd to 29th, down twelve percent on the week, including sixteen thousand six hundred metric tons to Mexico. Shipments declined six percent to thirty-five thousand two hundred metric tons. USDA's planned forty-one million dollar pork purchase offers potential demand, subject to tenders and awards. Brazil ordered nine poultry containers returned from voyages to Ghana and Angola after disease-control reference dates invalidated earlier certificates. The report did not identify contaminated product. Restrictions differ by destination and origin, with Mexico narrowing its suspension toward Santa Catarina. A November 4th bulletin reports a Newcastle detection in Rio Grande do Sul, while separate commentary cites another within Santa Catarina's restricted zone. For importers, cargo may lose destination eligibility while in transit, even when certified at departure. Maple Leaf Foods reported four point three percent third-quarter poultry sales growth. Its one hundred twenty-eight point nine zero million Canadian dollar adjusted EBITDA was companywide. USDA announced approximately twenty million dollars in planned chicken purchases. USD