In 2012, four loads in ten reported in USDA's daily boxed beef cutout were Select. In 2026 it is one in seven. Select is still a USDA grade and still a price on the daily report. It is no longer much of a market.
This article counts what USDA counts: the truckloads of Choice cuts and Select cuts that packers report selling each day. It is the same report that prints the Choice and Select cutouts, LM_XB403.
What the numbers count
Every afternoon USDA publishes the boxed beef cutout. Beside the prices it prints the day's volume: how many loads of Choice cuts and Select cuts traded, with a load being about 40,000 pounds. The volume section of the public record starts in January 2012, so that is where this count starts.
The share in this article is Select loads divided by Choice plus Select loads. It leaves out branded, ungraded, trim and ground beef loads on purpose. Those do not carry a Choice or Select price, so they say nothing about the choice between the two grades.
The slide, year by year
In 2012 the trade moved about 88 loads of Choice cuts and 60 loads of Select cuts a day. Select was 41 percent of the two. By 2015 it was under 30 percent. From 2020 to 2024 it held near 22 percent. Then it broke lower: 19 percent in 2025 and 14 percent so far in 2026.
| Year | Select share of Ch + Se loads | Choice loads a day | Select loads a day | Avg Ch/Se spread ($/cwt) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 41% | 88 | 60 | 10.0 |
| 2013 | 39% | 78 | 50 | 9.7 |
| 2014 | 37% | 73 | 43 | 8.7 |
| 2015 | 30% | 74 | 32 | 7.3 |
| 2016 | 32% | 69 | 32 | 10.7 |
| 2017 | 31% | 66 | 30 | 11.6 |
| 2018 | 31% | 62 | 27 | 11.5 |
| 2019 | 29% | 64 | 26 | 16.2 |
| 2020 | 22% | 81 | 23 | 12.3 |
| 2021 | 23% | 70 | 21 | 18.2 |
| 2022 | 23% | 72 | 22 | 18.9 |
| 2023 | 24% | 70 | 22 | 22.5 |
| 2024 | 22% | 78 | 22 | 16.6 |
| 2025 | 19% | 78 | 18 | 16.2 |
| 2026 to Oct 30 | 14% | 69 | 11 | 11.2 |
Choice volume has drifted down over the same years, from 88 loads a day to about 69. Select volume has collapsed, from 60 loads to about 11. The share fell because Select fell, not because Choice grew.
The thin days are the new part. Before 2025, a day with fewer than 7 loads of Select was rare: at most 2 percent of trading days in any year. In 2026 it is 23 percent of days. The lightest day of 2026 was March 13, with 3 loads. The week of April 10 averaged 7.6 percent Select, the lowest weekly share in the record.
USDA's weekly boxed beef report, 2465, counts every load including branded, ungraded, trim and ground. On that wider count Select was 10 percent of all boxed beef loads over March to December 2025 and 8 percent in 2026 to date. The week ending October 26, 2026 printed 7.9 percent.
Why fewer cattle grade Select
Select is a quality grade. A carcass with Slight marbling at the ribeye grades Select; a degree more and it grades Choice. So the share of Select in the box trade starts at the rail, with how many fed cattle grade Select in the first place. Cattle fed longer and sold heavier put on more marbling and grade higher, and the US fed cattle supply has gone that way for years. USDA's slaughter data has the steer carcass averaging 859 pounds dressed in 2012 and 977 pounds so far in 2026. The grading article covers how the grade is read.
The last week USDA's national grading report published as text, the week ending December 21, 2024, Select was 14 percent of steers and heifers graded, against 72 percent Choice and 11 percent Prime. The box trade in 2026 shows about the same Select share as the rail did then. There is not a pool of Select beef being held back. There is just less of it.
What a thin Select market does to the spread
The Choice/Select spread is the Choice cutout minus the Select cutout. It is read as a measure of the Choice premium. With this little Select changing hands, it is also a measure of a few loads.
Two things followed in 2026. First, the spread turned negative on 15 days this year, more than in 2010 to 2025 put together, with the low on March 25 at minus $3.80 per cwt. Second, the seasonal pattern weakened. Late October is normally a wide-spread time of year. In 2020 to 2025 the spread in the last week of October ran between $17 and $31. In 2026 it ran about $13.50.
A reader of the spread has to check the loads behind it now. The CH/SE spread article has the rule of thumb: a move on 6 loads of Select is a weak read, a move on 20 is real.
What it means for a buyer
If a program spec says Select, the market it draws from is about a sixth of what it was in 2012. On a normal 2026 day the whole country reports about 11 loads of Select cuts. A cut you want in Select may not print at all that day, and a price that does print can sit near Choice, or above it, on two or three loads.
The Select cutout page carries today's print and the loads behind it.