Week of August 02, 2026

The Week

Beef prices have come down about 6.5% in a month, which is the first real break buyers have had since spring. This week they stopped. One flat week is not the end of it, but if you have been waiting for a better number before you buy, that is the thing to watch. The clearest opening is in the middle meats, where two cuts are back to normal prices and two have not moved at all.

Supply Picture

Beef packers are still underwater. After buying the animal and selling the meat and the hide, they are left with about $116 a head, and it costs them $250 to $400 to kill and cut it. Cash cattle came down about $3 this week, which narrowed the loss, but they are not close to even.

The kill ran near 523,000 head, still about 8% under last year. Steers are heavier than a year ago, so there is less beef around than last year, but not as much less as the head count suggests.

The Douglas, Arizona border crossing reopens August 24 to Mexican cattle from Sonora and Chihuahua only, every head screened. It will not add a single animal to this year's kill. That shortage was locked in a year and a half ago. What it starts to fix is 2027.

Demand Situation

That flat week is a pause, not a bottom. The Choice to Select spread widened a little, the first time in weeks. Worth watching, not worth acting on yet.

The middle meats took the damage, but not evenly. Strip loin is down about 18% in four weeks and short loin 16%, and both are back to roughly what they normally cost in August. Ribeye has barely moved and still runs about 27% above normal. Tenderloin has not moved at all. Middle meats did not come down. Two of them did. Buy the loins and leave the rib alone.

We said hold on strip loin, and on ribeye the week before. Both were wrong. Two weeks running we said hold in a falling market and got it wrong, and the lesson is simple: do not sit on an expensive cut while prices are dropping. Where we said cuts were going lower, short loin and top butt, we were right.

Chuck flap is the one to move. Down about 12% and still expensive. If you are holding it, sell it.

Ground 81% is down about 10% and still costs more than it should. The 50CL is down about 9% and is back to a normal price, the first lean item to get there. If you already have lean bought, stay covered. If you are buying today, you are paying too much for everything except the 50CL.

Boneless skinless breast is running about a quarter below its normal August price, which is a fair part of why the ad pages are full of chicken right now.

Pork bellies closed our July 5 call up 27%. They were cheap for the season and already turning higher when we called it.

Summary

Packers losing money on every head is the thing to watch on the beef side. They cannot run this way indefinitely, and the way it usually ends is a smaller kill. Nothing has pulled beef middles higher yet, and retailers are not featuring them.

Pork packers are underwater as well, and for the same reason it matters in beef: nobody processes at a loss forever.

This week's call: pork bellies at 189 cents. Still cheap for August and climbing for a month now. The risk is the calendar. BLT season carries bellies through the summer and demand usually eases once it is done.

Watch August 24. Any new screwworm case that delays that border opening makes 2027 tighter than the market expects today.