Week of September 19, 2026
The Week
Both ends of the meat case are at extremes at once. The derind belly printed about 105 this week, some 41% under a normal third week of September, while Choice strip loin sits about 40% over its norm and has not given back a cent. The break in beef has moved out of the trim and into the ground, and the middles have not noticed.
Supply Picture
The packer paid up for cattle this week and got nothing back for it. Cash steers averaged about $222.82, up $3.75, while the Choice cutout kept slipping, so the cattle to cutout spread narrowed to about $432 a head from $496.
The four-week spread is about $469 a head, and this week still leaves roughly $32 to $182 a head after plant cost: every plant in the black on any plausible operating cost.
So why reach? Placements are about 9% under a year ago and he is bidding for a shrinking set of October cattle while the futures fell. Side with the man who has to fill a kill floor Monday.
Demand Situation
The middles did not take the cutout down; everything else did. Ribeye is up close to 7% over four weeks and strip is flat, both well over their September norms, and the loin ads retail added last week came back off: middle-meat share of beef features fell more than five points while sirloin picked up about 3,400 stores. Tri-tip is the sirloin cut carrying those ads, and it prices about 44% over its norm. None of this is a grade story; Choice is abundant.
Ground has fallen hard and is still not cheap. Ground 73% is off about 18% in a month and the lean trim under it matched the move, yet lean ground still prices a third over its norm. Only the fat trim is cheap, more than a quarter under a normal third week of September. Reprice ground formulas off the fat side now.
Outside skirt is the one beef cut in the week's movers going up, about 12% in a month and expensive on any seasonal read; cover need, nothing forward. Flank is 13% cheaper than a month ago, but with 51 of 54 beef cuts over their norms, cheaper is not cheap.
Pork Market
We called bellies firm last week and they kept falling. The scorecard has the call off track with a week to run. What we missed was above the belly: lean hog futures dropped about 4% this week and the pork cutout is off about 11% in a month, so the paper market is pricing more pork into October, not less.
The one pork primal rising is the butt, up close to 10% over four weeks while the cutout fell. Hams have not followed: roll out ham is about 21% under a normal third week of September and printed higher this week on thin volume, the same thin series we pulled a call on in August, so nothing gets built on it.
Loins are the quiet one: quarter-trimmed loins are about 19% under norm and still sliding, and loin features came off about 5,000 stores this week, so nobody is lifting them for you.
Chicken Market
Dark meat moved and white meat did not. Leg quarters gained 3.4% and boneless thigh 3.8% on the week, and quarters now price about 14% over a normal September; buy both to need only. Breast, wings and tenders went nowhere again, so a fall program on white meat is still a buyer's conversation.
Retail took back last week's chicken push, roughly 44,000 fewer stores featuring it, so the ad page is about where it stood two weeks ago. CFIA added Wisconsin to its HPAI poultry restrictions Friday, a week after North Dakota; origin checks on US loads are now routine, not a one-off.
Summary
No new call this week. Two cheap-side calls in three weeks, 50CL and the belly, broke because the fat and the pork kept coming, and the next cheap candidate, roll out ham, trades on a series too thin to grade honestly. The belly window closes next Friday; we grade it and start clean.
What you do instead: reprice ground off the fat trim, use the loin discount on the quote without calling a bottom, cover skirt to need, and leave strip and ribeye alone while the ad page walks away from them. If hog futures stop falling and bellies print flat two days running, the belly discount becomes the call again.