Meat market read, Wednesday, June 24, 2026

The loonie's drop to 1.4233 is doing real damage today. USD/CAD widened 75 pips overnight, and that moves the landed cost on every US primal before a single market price shifts. Inside skirt at 699¢/lb is already down 60¢/lb on the session and 101¢/lb on the month, so Canadian buyers are getting a softer sticker price on that cut but paying more to convert dollars to get there. The lean complex tells a different story: 73% fresh chemical lean at 340¢/lb and ground beef 73% at 383¢/lb have run hard this month, and the forward history says both carry meaningful downside risk from this point in June. Plate skirt's seasonal path adds another 37¢/lb of softness over the coming weeks. The real forward signal lands Friday when Cattle on Feed prints; with the forward kill already 9.7% below year-ago, that report either deepens the tight-supply case or complicates it.

meatread.com