Week of October 17, 2026

The Week

The Choice cutout has sat near 372 c/lb for a month. The pork cutout averaged about $80 this week, a level it last saw in April 2023. Rank every cut by how far it sits from its usual price for mid October and the split is clean. All 23 cuts that are cheap for the season are pork. Of the 24 that are dear, 21 are beef. Retail is already trading that split: USDA's Friday ad report has pork feature activity up 12% on the week and chicken up nearly a quarter, with beef flat.

Supply Picture

Hogs are the supply story this week, a small one: about 2.44 million head through Friday, 1.7% over last year, with weights flat. Pork packers are near breakeven, a few dollars a head either side of zero, so the pork slide is coming out of their margin and not out of the hog price.

USDA's October outlook, published Friday, has hogs near $55 a hundredweight in the fourth quarter, more than 15% under last year, after cutting this year's pork output by 150 million pounds. Cheap pork is not a supply surprise; the government's own forecast expects it to stay cheap into December.

Cattle did nothing. Packers killed about 532,000 head through Friday, under 5% below the same week last year, and cash steers held near $220.

Beef packers are still earning roughly $57 to $207 a head after plant costs, a little better than last week, and that margin keeps the cattle kill where it is.

Demand Situation

The beef ad page did not grow this week, it rotated. The bone-in chuck roast is the most featured beef item in the country at 8,253 stores and $6.98 a pound, and the chuck roll behind it is 596 c/lb at wholesale, up 9% in four weeks and a third over its usual price for the week. Buy it for the weeks the ads need, no further.

The cheap end of beef is the plate and the round. Outside skirt is off 22% in a month. Knuckle and brisket, already cheap last week, kept falling, 10% and 8%, and round ads gained stores: retail is working the end of the carcass you should be.

Strip loin and ribeye sit about a third over their usual price for mid October and went nowhere in a month, while rib ads fell by half. The bid that firmed was overseas. Beef export sales for the week ending October 8 came in 55% above their four-week average, with Korea and Japan buying. My read, not a print: with the ad page off rib, nothing at home forces the middles higher before the holiday ads. Pay today's price for the week, not for November.

Pork Market

The loin did the damage this month: loin combo near 93 c/lb, off 8% in four weeks, tenderloin off 10%, boneless butt combo off 13%.

Retail answered. Boneless center-cut chops went from 1,728 stores to 4,333 in one week on USDA's ad count, at $3.82 a pound, and that ad buy is the floor under loin for the next few weeks. Hams and bellies are the deeper discounts: the trimmed selected ham and the derind belly both sit a quarter to a third under their usual October price. Cover November loin needs where the ads are pulling. Hams and bellies can wait a week or two; with USDA expecting hogs lower into December, the discount is not going anywhere.

Chicken Market

Retail flipped to chicken parts. USDA's chicken ad activity rose 23% in a week, led by boneless breast, which nearly tripled its store count at $2.20 a pound. The discount now has a retail buyer. Wings are still about 26% under their usual mid October price and tenders about 34% under, so buy US wing and tender coverage there.

Boneless thigh meat is the exception, up 11% in four weeks and now above its usual level, so that window is shut. Canadian buyers: the US parts discount only lands if there is import quota room, and the fill is on the Quota Watch page.

Summary

A flat beef cutout over the cheapest pork in three and a half years, and the ad pages moving money to chicken parts and pork loin. Monday: cover November pork loin, buy US wings and tenders, take outside skirt while it is priced like a fall cut, and buy the chuck roll week to week. Two things to watch. Friday, October 23 brings Cattle on Feed and Cold Storage on the same afternoon. And the border: New Mexico confirmed two more screwworm cases Thursday in Grant County, next door to the Columbus port that is next in line to reopen to Mexican cattle. Santa Teresa has been open since late September; there is no official date for Columbus.