THE PROTEIN PULSE - Closing Bell Friday | November 13th, 2026

THE PROTEIN PULSE Closing Bell Friday | November 13th, 2026 Full Executive Briefing — Spoken Script

HOST: Welcome to The Protein Pulse Podcast, your daily market update on all things protein. This is Closing Bell Friday for November 13th, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Can you hear me now? The cows certainly couldn't. When Microsoft Office went down around the globe on Thursday, corporate protein buyers spent the morning frantically refreshing frozen screens, pacing hallways, and muttering the old Verizon catchphrase into dead headsets: Can you hear me now? Good. With Excel trapped in the cloud and Outlook holding purchase orders hostage, you would think the food supply chain had ground to a halt. Out in the real world, nobody got the memo. In Iowa, hogs didn't pause at the feeder waiting for SharePoint to reboot. In Arkansas, forty thousand broilers didn't skip breakfast because OneDrive was spinning. On Texas feedlots, cattle kept doing what they've done since long before Bill Gates learned to code: eating corn and getting turned into boxed beef. The cloud doesn't farrow, cluck, or graze. Biological reality is the only network with zero downtime. When the digital world goes dark, the physical market keeps rolling—and when Outlook finally loads, it'll be waiting to price your next load.

HOST: France summoned Iran's ambassador November 10th after accusing Tehran of sabotaging refrigeration systems at hundreds of supermarkets in October. Iran denies responsibility. Stores discarded spoiled food after controllers were remotely forced into defrost cycles. A separate U.S. federal warning identified weaknesses in connected refrigeration controls. The Thursday Microsoft outage was a separate incident. Sterling estimates a forty-four eighty-five a head producer loss against approximately forty-six a head in packer profit for the prior week. USDA reported beef net sales down thirteen percent to nine thousand six hundred metric tons, while pork rose six percent to thirty-nine thousand five hundred metric tons. Export demand differs by protein. Union Pacific's third-quarter collections exceeded fuel expenses by one hundred thirty-one point eight zero million. BNSF's nine-month collections fell short. Contract surcharge formulas affect delivered-feed costs. U.S. net export orders reached two point eight eight million metric tons, led by Mexico. Feed buyers face stronger export demand.

SHAWN: USDA counted seven hundred eighty-one head traded Wednesday across five areas, versus eleven thousand nine hundred fifty-three in the comparable week-earlier report. This demonstrates one day's limited price discovery, not an ongoing decline. Formula and grid marketing can constrain regional cash reporting. Cash-linked contracts need benchmark fallbacks. Thursday's Choice grade cutout dropped two sixty-seven to three fifty-seven fifty-nine, while Select grade gained one twenty-four to three forty-eight seventy-one. The spread narrowed to eight eighty-eight. Fresh national nineties averaged three sixty and eighty-fives two eighty-three on a Thursday negotiated F-O-B Plant basis. The previous weekly nineties average was three seventy. Periods are not directly comparable. New consumer surveys and verified-prescription household purchasing data found annual food-and-beverage spending of ten thousand four hundred forty-two among GLP-1 households, eight point eight percent above other households. After adjusting for age and income, beef, ground beef and pork spending remained stronger than among comparable households. Causation is unproven. Retailers should test repeat purchasing of convenient meat formats.

HOST: Sterling's model for the week ended November 7th estimates farrow-to-finish losses of forty-four eighty-five a head and packer gains of approximately forty-six a head. On Thursday, the national negotiated hog carcass base rose two twelve to thirty-nine sixty-four as the F-O-B Plant cutout slipped twenty cents to sixty-nine fourteen. The belly primal rose seven forty-six to sixty-eight seventy-one while the picnic primal dropped seven fifty-five to fifty-one ninety-three. Buyers face divergent primal costs. New industry reporting describes an integrated pork operation nearly halving high-health transport compliance errors through fleet segregation, location monitoring and wash procedures. Earlier research at a harvest facility found roughly one-quarter of initially virus-negative trailers became positive for at least one of three tested swine viruses during unloading. The PRRS-specific figure was seventeen point five percent. PCR detections are not herd infection rates. Haulers should address dock exposure. USDA's November 12th hatchery report counted one hundred eighty-eight point three one seven million broiler chicks placed in the week ended November 7th, up two percent year over year. Cumulative placements were approximately eight point five nine billion, also up two percent. Eggs set totaled two hundred forty-three point nine nine two million. On the purchasing side, boneless skinless breasts averaged one ten F-O-B for the week ended November 6th, down one forty-six cents a pound, while whole birds averaged one eighteen delivered, up fifty-eight cents a pound. Placements are not available inventory. After Thursday's confirmation in Kyoto and a planned cull of approximately two hundred thousand chickens, authorities confirmed a second outbreak Friday at an egg-laying farm in Chiba, requiring culling of about forty thousand hens. Movement restrictions affect approximately five point six two million birds on nearby farms. Neither outbreak establishes a U.S. broiler shortage or new import ban.

SHAWN: The companies announced a multiyear partnership expansion across fourteen markets, including integrated fulfillment for McDonald's app orders in sele