Monday Morning USA Meats Intelligence Report: Issue #2

Issue #2 · Monday, October 19, 2026 · Market week of Oct 12–16

Good morning. Same deal as last week: one read on beef, pork, chicken and seafood, what the supermarket ads ran, what to book before the holidays, and one piece of meat math for the floor. This week's math is the one we promised: why your meat department almost never averages what you think it does.

The 30-second version

• Beef: a quiet drift lower. Choice averaged $374.70/cwt (−$1.50 on the week, +$9.16 on the year). The loin and the short plate gave ground. Rib and chuck held firm. Trading was thin: loads were down 28.7% from a year ago.
• Pork: the USDA weekly composite carcass cutout for the completed week is $80.24/cwt, down $2.10 (−2.6%) on the week and $22.60 (−22.0%) on the year.
• Chicken: boneless breast and tenders eased about 2¢. Boneless thighs jumped 5¢. Leg quarters held near 53.5¢/lb.
• Seafood: Ecuador has passed India as the top source of U.S. shrimp imports so far this year. Wholesale shrimp buying is slow and prices are still soft.
• Ads: 20 supermarket banners, 512 per-lb prices. Deli ham ran at 17 banners with a $3.99 median, a dollar below last week.
• Meat Math: three categories that "average" 20.7% on paper make 17.8% in real life. One loss leader takes it to 15.1%.

1. Last Week's Market

All USDA wholesale values are FOB plant, in $ per hundredweight (cwt = 100 lb) unless noted. Divide by 100 for $/lb: $374.70/cwt = $3.75/lb. These are USDA market prices, not USA Meats sell prices. Live boards: usameats.com.

Beef: the loin and plate soften, the rib and chuck hold

Takeaway: The Choice cutout slipped about 1.5¢/lb on the week and is still about 9¢/lb above a year ago. The loin primal lost $6.22 (short loins fell 5%) and the short plate lost $12.47. The rib and chuck both edged higher and remain well above last year, which is what you'd expect heading into roast and holiday season. Volume was light. Beef offers are on Today’s deals.

Daily Choice / Select (closes): Mon $375.56 / $354.13 · Tue $375.15 / $353.67 · Wed $376.50 / $358.47 · Thu $373.98 / $352.62 · Fri $372.31 / $353.05 (Friday's Choice close was the low of the week).

Choice primals (weekly average):

Movers: Choice subprimals, weekly volume-weighted average (items with ≥150,000 lb traded in both weeks):

Grinds and trim (weekly wtd avg): 81% ground beef $341.54 (−$0.94 WoW, +10.2% YoY) · 73% $259.67 (+$6.91, −4.0% YoY) · 85% $405.32 (−$8.82) · ground chuck $378.36 (+8.3% YoY) · fresh 50% lean trim $89.06 (−$4.35 WoW, −36.5% YoY).

The trend under the trend: fat is still cheap and lean is still dear. Fresh 50s are more than a third below last year while 81% ground beef is up 10%. USDA's Economic Research Service says 90% lean trimmings have also dropped sharply, tied to more lower-priced imported lean, even though U.S. cow slaughter this year is the lowest since 1950 (ERS LDP-M-388, Oct 16).

Cattle side (USDA 5-Area Weekly, LM_CT150, week ending Sun 10/11): negotiated live steers averaged $220.14/cwt at 1,606 lb (+$0.34 WoW, −$13.93 YoY), and dressed steers $345.66/cwt at 1,027 lb, on 47,339 head confirmed (60,063 the week before). ERS keeps its fourth-quarter fed steer forecast at $225 and 2027 at $237.50 (LDP-M-388).

Pork: completed-week carcass cutout

Takeaway: The USDA weekly composite carcass cutout for the completed week is $80.24/cwt, down $2.10 (−2.6%) on the week and $22.60 (−22.0%) on the year. That's the second straight weekly decline. Holiday ham and tamale-season pork programs are in Section 3.

Weekly figures only, by design. WoW is vs. the completed week ending 10/9/2026. YoY is vs. the completed week ending 10/17/2025.

Why it's happening: ERS says 2026 pork cutout values "have been pulled down mostly by low values of bellies and hams," and that lower production together with sharply lower hog prices "indicates that pork demand is in retreat, both domestically and internationally". ERS expects producer-sold hogs to average about $55/cwt in the fourth quarter, more than 15% below a year ago, and says slower buying by Mexico is holding back export growth (ERS LDP-M-388, Oct 16).

Chicken: breast eases, thighs climb

Takeaway: White meat got a little cheaper and boneless thighs got a lot pricier. Boneless thighs now run about 56¢/lb over boneless breast, up from 49¢ last week. If a recipe or a case can use breast instead of thigh, that's money. Leg quarters held near 53.5¢, and drumsticks firmed 4¢ on almost triple the volume.

ERS lowered its fourth-quarter whole-broiler price projection 1¢ to 116¢/lb after September averaged 116.64¢. It also expects chicken consumption per person to rise almost 4% this year as shoppers trade down from high-priced beef (LDP-M-388).

Turkey check (AMS 3647): no fresh whole-hen trades were reported this week. Frozen hens (8–16 lb) were offered at 177–195¢/lb and frozen toms (16–24 lb) at 180–195¢. Those are offers, not trades. ERS raised its fourth-quarter frozen hen forecast 5¢ to 175¢, and avian influenza returned to 11 commercial turkey flocks in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota in September (544,900 birds) (LDP-M-388).

Seafood: Ecuador takes the lead, buying slows

Takeaway: Through August, U.S. shrimp imports totaled 539,821 metric tons (−1% YoY). Ecuador shipped 195,023 MT (+32%) and passed India at 177,994 MT (−19%) (Shrimp Insights, from U.S. Census data). Trade press says U.S. wholesale buying slowed this week even as shrimp prices continue to soften (Undercurrent News, Oct 15). Retail ads moved the other way: the median raw shrimp ad rose from $5.49 to $6.28/lb as 10 banners featured it, up from 7, while peeled shrimp ads fell from $7.49 to $6.74 (Section 2).

Data gap, said plainly: there's still no free, public weekly U.S. wholesale shrimp price benchmark. We report import volumes and retail ads instead, and the live Seafood board shows what's available now.

2. Supermarket Ads Recap (anonymized)

Ad week Wed Oct 14 – Tue Oct 20 (2026-W42). Advertised retail prices, $/lb only. No store, chain or brand names. An item is reported only if at least 3 banners ran it and no single banner supplies more than half its prices. "Cheapest tier" is the 25th-percentile ad price: a quarter of ads were at or below it. Full dataset: Supermarket Specials News.

Hispanic and independent supermarkets (Midwest): 20 banners, 512 per-lb ad prices (vs. 431 across 16 banners the prior week, on the same basis), and 49 items cleared the reporting bar.

What everyone ran (most banners):

1. Deli/cooked ham: 17 of 20 banners, up from 13. Holiday ham is now the most-advertised item in the case.
2. Pork chops and pork ribs: 12 banners each
3. Deli turkey breast: 11
4. Pork spareribs and raw shrimp: 10 each
5. Turkey ham, pork butt, pork stew meat and tilapia fillets: 9 each

Moves worth noticing

• Cheaper: deli ham ($4.98 → $3.99), espinazo ($2.74 → $1.99), strip steak ($8.99 → $6.99), pork chops ($2.49 → $2.09), bone-in split breast ($1.99 → $1.53), peeled shrimp ($7.49 → $6.74), turkey ham ($4.99 → $4.39), beef shank ($5.99 → $5.49).
• Pricier: 26–50 shrimp ($4.99 → $5.99), whole tilapia ($1.99 → $2.74), boneless pork loin ($2.49 → $2.99), beef fajitas ($6.99 → $7.99).
• More banners featuring: pork spareribs (4 → 10), bone-in split breast (3 → 8), bottom round (3 → 7), pork ribs (8 → 12), deli ham (13 → 17).
• Fewer banners featuring: chicken fajita meat (9 → 6), espinazo (8 → 5), deli salami (6 → 3), drumsticks (7 → 5), beef taco meat (6 → 4).

Mainstream grocers (Midwest): 10 grocery companies, 134 per-lb prices (up from 112), 14 items reported. Boneless breast $3.49 median (up from $1.99; low $1.99), drumsticks $1.99, pork butt $1.99, pork ribs $2.89, deli ham $6.99 (down from $7.99), ground beef $4.99, NY strip $12.99 (up from $11.99), raw shrimp $7.00, peeled shrimp $8.99, snow crab $11.99. Same story as last week, only wider: the strip steak median at the mainstream chains is $6.00/lb above the Hispanic/independent median, and deli ham is $3.00 higher.

Wholesale-to-ad check (public numbers only): USDA bulk leg quarters were 53.5¢/lb FOB and the ad median was 99¢. USDA boneless breast was about $1.17/lb FOB and the Hispanic/independent ad median was $1.99. Chicken is still carrying the traffic.

3. Buying Opportunities: what's soft now and what to book ahead

This is market context, not a quote. For current delivered pricing, check the live boards and Request a pallet.

Soft now: worth featuring

• Sirloin and loin end cuts. Tri-tip fell 3.3%, bottom sirloin flap 2.9% and boneless top butt 2.7% on the week, and short loins dropped 5%. Good timing for sirloin steak, picanha-style and flap (bistec/carne asada) features.
• Beef round. The round primal is 7.8% below last year. Eye of round (−18% YoY), peeled knuckle/bola (−19% YoY) and inside round (−8% YoY) are the value cuts for roasts, milanesa, carne picada and stew as it gets colder. Retailers noticed: bottom round ads went from 3 banners to 7.
• Fat trim and fattier blends. Fresh 50s are down 36.5% YoY and 73% ground beef is down 4%, while 81% is up 10%. → Trim & Grind
• Chicken breast and tenders. Both eased about 2¢ this week. Bone-in split breast ads jumped from 3 banners to 8. → Poultry board
• Chicken dark meat. Leg quarters are still one of the cheapest proteins anywhere, and retailers are running them at a 99¢ ad median. → Leg quarters
• Holiday hams. Deli ham is now on 17 of 20 Hispanic/independent banners. Thanksgiving is Thu Nov 26, and Christmas and New Year's are the big ham holidays. If you run bone-in or smoked ham programs, price them on the live pork board. → Pork board
• Tamale-season pork. Día de Muertos (Nov 1–2), Virgen de Guadalupe (Dec 12), posadas and Christmas tamales all run on pork shoulder. Spareribs went from 4 banners to 10 and pork stew meat from 6 to 9. → Fresh pork

Book ahead: the market is firm or the calendar is tight

• Rib (prime rib, ribeye). The rib primal is +8.6% YoY and bone-in lip-on ribeyes are +11.1% YoY on heavy volume. Holiday rib roasts are where waiting usually costs money. Lock in quantities.
• Tenderloin. Heavy tenderloins are 13% below last year. That's a relative bargain for holiday party programs, and middle meats usually firm into December.
• Chuck. The chuck primal is +13.5% YoY and chuck roll +29%. If chuck items (espaldilla, diezmillo, chuck roast) carry your ad, look at round cuts as substitutes.
• Boneless thighs. Up 5¢ this week and now 56¢ over breast. Book needs early or plan a breast swap.
• Turkey. Thanksgiving is about 5½ weeks out. Frozen hens are offered at 177–195¢, ERS just raised its fourth-quarter forecast, and avian influenza is back in turkey country. Finalize counts now.
• Lent 2027 seafood. Ash Wednesday is Feb 10, 2027. Shrimp is soft and buyers are holding back, which is usually when the best Lent programs get booked. → Seafood board · 21/25 shrimp
• Holiday calendar: every key buying date in one place → Holiday buying calendar

Do the delivered math before you commit: a cheap FOB price isn't cheap once freight is added. Run it through the → Landed-cost calculator, then → Request a pallet.

4. Industry & Institutional News

Cattle and screwworm

• New World screwworm near the next border crossing: New Mexico confirmed two new cases (a calf and a horse) in Grant County on Thursday, Oct 15. The state declared two infested zones, one around Silver City and one covering the Lordsburg, Playas and Nachita valleys, and a surveillance zone that reaches east to Columbus. Columbus was next in line to reopen to Mexican cattle after Douglas, AZ (Aug 24) and Santa Teresa, NM (Sept 24). No reopening date has been announced (Meatingplace, Oct 16; New Mexico Livestock Board).
• Feeder cattle: ERS raised its fourth-quarter feeder steer forecast $8 to $343/cwt, citing strong prices, tight domestic feeder supplies and more expected Mexican calf imports. September fed steers averaged $221.05, the fourth monthly decline in a row and $17.59 below last year (ERS LDP-M-388, Oct 16).

Plants and capacity

• Tyson Eagle Mountain, UT: the case-ready beef and pork plant closed on or around Oct 12, with 723 jobs lost, as part of Tyson's beef restructuring during the cattle shortage (KSL, Oct 2026).
• Sioux Falls, SD: a major pork packer says it will reapply for a conditional-use permit for its planned $1.3 billion pork plant after a judge invalidated the city's earlier approval. The new application has to address neighborhood input, groundwater design, fire review and a site-management plan (Sioux Falls Live; Meatingplace, Oct 14).

Tariffs and imports

• Beef imports: ERS now forecasts 2026 U.S. beef imports at 6.347 billion lb, nearly 18% above last year (LDP-M-388). For grinders, that means more imported lean in the system and pressure on 90s (see Beef).
• China–Brazil: Brazil filled its 1.106-million-tonne China beef quota on Sept 29. Since Oct 1, over-quota Brazilian beef pays a 55% safeguard tariff on top of the regular 12% duty, through Dec 31 (Beef Central; G1). Beef that can't go to China has to find other buyers, and the U.S. is one of them.
• Shrimp: Ecuador is the top source of U.S. shrimp imports year to date through August, ahead of India (see Seafood) (Shrimp Insights).

Outlook (ERS, Oct 16)

• Pork demand is "in retreat"; fourth-quarter pork production is forecast at 7.2 billion lb, about 1% below last year.
• Chicken consumption per person is forecast up almost 4% in 2026 as consumers move away from high-priced beef.
• The next Livestock, Dairy & Poultry Outlook is Tue Nov 17.

Recalls and alerts

• Kayem Foods voluntary recall (Oct 16): fully cooked meat and poultry products stored and shipped between June 7 and Oct 14, 2026, after a cooling malfunction at one of the company's warehouses. Products are identified by brand, item, UPC and lot code on the company's list and USDA's recall page. The company says it is contacting its wholesale and retail customers directly. Check your deli and grab-and-go stock (Kayem Foods release; USDA FSIS).
• FSIS Class I recall 025-2026 (Oct 2): about 189 lb (1,428 bags) of 60-gram "YUPI Golpe con Todo Sabor BBQ" snack bags containing pork cracklings, imported from Colombia, which is not eligible to export meat to the U.S. Distributed in AZ, CA, CO, FL, IL, KY, MN and TX. Pull it if it's on your snack aisle (USDA FSIS).
• Still worth checking: the Oct 6 FSIS alert on canned chicken Vienna-style sausages illegally imported from Jamaica, and the Class I recall of raw pork, beef and goat products carrying a false "EST. 1363" mark (USDA FSIS).

On the calendar: USDA's Cattle on Feed and Cold Storage reports are both out Fri Oct 23 at 2:00 PM CT (USDA NASS). Cold Storage will show how much pork, beef and turkey is sitting in freezers going into the holidays.

5. Meat Math: Your Department Isn't Averaging What You Think

Every Monday, one number that helps you buy smarter. Last week we promised the department-margin math. Here it is.

The store numbers below are a hypothetical example for teaching. They are not USA Meats prices and not any real store's results.

Step 1: Margin is weighted by sales dollars

Department margin = total gross profit dollars ÷ total sales dollars. It is not the average of your category margins. Take a store whose ground beef makes 18%, steaks make 32% and chicken makes 12%:

The simple average of the three margins is (18 + 32 + 12) ÷ 3 = 20.7%. The real number is $6,420 ÷ $36,000 = 17.8%. Steaks carry the best margin but only 17% of the sales. Ground beef and chicken are 83% of the sales, so they set the department number.

Shortcut: department margin = (each category's share of sales × its margin), added up. Here: 41.7% × 18% + 16.7% × 32% + 41.7% × 12% = 17.8%.

Step 2: One loss leader

Now add a leg-quarter ad. This week's Hispanic/independent ad median was 99¢/lb (Section 2). Say your ad item runs at a −10% margin and sells $4,000:

One item that's 10% of sales took 2.8 points off the department. It hurts twice: it loses $400, and it adds $4,000 of sales that bring no profit, so every other dollar gets divided by a bigger number.

Step 3: Set the ad so the week still hits target

Say the target is 20%. On $40,000 of sales that's $8,000 of gross profit. The ad loses $400, so the rest of the case has to earn $8,400 on $36,000 = 23.3%.

Required margin on everything else = (target % × total sales − ad gross profit) ÷ sales of everything else.

Three levers, same ad week (all hypothetical):

• Price: lift the rest of the case from 17.8% to 23.3%. That's a big jump for one week.
• Mix: move $3,000 of sales from chicken into steaks (holiday rib and steak features). The department goes from 15.1% to 16.6% with the same ad.
• Ad size: cap the ad at $2,000 of sales (limit per customer, shorter run). The department lands at 16.4%.

None of them gets back to 20% alone. That's the lesson: plan the ad, the mix and the target together, before the ad prints.

Reality check: what public data says

USDA's Meat Price Spreads (September 2026) show how much of the retail price is the wholesale-to-retail spread: 43.5% for Choice beef, 68.6% for pork and 62.2% for chicken (USDA ERS). That spread isn't a store margin. It covers everything between the wholesale price and the checkout, including cutting, shipping, labor, shrink and profit. It still shows the pattern: beef carries the smallest share per dollar, so a beef-heavy holiday mix pulls the department percentage down even as it adds dollars.

Percent compares, dollars pay the rent. Using the same example margins on ERS's September average retail prices: a steak at 32% of $12.69/lb earns about $4.06/lb, ground beef at 18% of $6.79/lb earns about $1.22/lb, and chicken legs at 12% of $1.74/lb earn about $0.21/lb. The low-percentage item can still be the one you need to move volume, as long as you know what it costs the week.

Make it yours: before you set the ad price, check where the wholesale market is on the → USDA charts and what actually lands at your door with the → Landed-cost calculator.

Sources: USDA ERS Meat Price Spreads and retail price data (updated Oct 14, 2026, September 2026 values); USA Meats Supermarket Specials News 2026-W42. Department example is hypothetical; all math is in data/meat_math.py. Values are rounded.

6. Next Week

Meat Math #3: the cutting yield test. How to test one box of chuck rolls: weigh it in, cut it, weigh every steak, roast, stew and trim pile, and work out what each cut has to sell for to hit your target. It wraps up October's cattle-and-yields month.

Coming in November: merchandising, building the holiday case (ham, turkey, rib roast and tamale pork) with the margin math from this week.

Also on the radar: Cattle on Feed and Cold Storage (Fri Oct 23), the Columbus, NM crossing, and the last big turkey and ham commitments before Thanksgiving.

See the live market at usameats.com: Deals · Poultry · Pork · Trim & Grind · Seafood · Mexican meats · USDA charts · Landed-cost calculator · Holiday calendar · USA Meats Intelligence · Supermarket Specials News

Ready to buy? → Request a pallet

USA Meats Intelligence uses public data only. USDA values are wholesale FOB-plant market prices, not USA Meats sell prices. Supermarket ad data is anonymized and aggregated.

Price a load from the live boards

Beef offers are on Today’s deals. Pork, chicken and seafood prices are on the live boards. This page does not set a price.