THE PROTEIN PULSE — DRIVE TIME Thursday Margin Monitor | November 12th, 2026

HOST: Protein Pulse Drive Time. Thursday Margin Monitor, November 12th. From The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: The real battle is happening inside your supplier P&Ls. Third-quarter retail beef demand hit a twenty-six year high at nine sixty-three a pound, yet boxed beef cutouts dropped again yesterday, leaving major packers scraping by on a zero point three percent quarterly margin. Meanwhile, pork demand sits at twelve-year lows, even as butts and picnics rally while ribs plunge over seven bucks. Chicken forecasts are shrinking, yet weekly breast prices stay soft. The protein complex isn't moving as a single trade anymore. Treating composite cutouts or annual USDA forecasts as pricing anchors leaves real margin on the table. Don't hedge this environment with generic specs, border assumptions, or broad category averages. Know your supplier's pain points, price each primal on its own math, and test every formula escalator against real-time realization. Complexity isn't a risk if your contracts are built to price it. Time to earn your fourth quarter bonus.

HOST: Choice grade cutout at three sixty twenty-six, down two seventy-two. Pork cutout at sixty-nine thirty-four. Fresh nineties at three sixty-eight. West Texas Crude at eighty-six fifty-three. Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel at four twenty-one.

SHAWN: Complexity isn't a risk if your contracts are built to price it. Time to earn your fourth quarter bonus. Stay disciplined.

HOST: Protein Pulse Drive Time. Shawn Sparks, The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Stay disciplined.