THE PROTEIN PULSE — DRIVE TIME

Taco Meat Tuesday | September 22, 2026

HOST: Protein Pulse Drive Time. Taco Meat Tuesday, September twenty-second. From The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: We’ve gotten pretty good at producing protein. The question is whether we’ve gotten as good at giving consumers what they actually want. Consumers aren’t buying feed conversion. They’re buying dinner. The next opportunity isn’t necessarily more pounds. It’s making the pounds we produce worth more.

HOST: August placements down nine point two percent. On-feed still up seven-tenths. Cattle on feed one hundred fifty days or longer up eighteen point three percent.

SHAWN: More pounds from cattle already in the system. Fewer replacements entering it. Packer margins seventy-five to one hundred fifty a head. Last week’s slaughter five hundred twenty-nine thousand. Southern cash two twenty-six to two twenty-seven. Fresh nineties four twenty. Fifties eighty-three cents. South American nineties shown three oh eight F O B Philadelphia. Today’s inventory price may not be the next shipment.

HOST: Pork cutout up. Bellies and loins did the work. Seaboard’s point: consumption still near fifty pounds a person. Beef built eating quality. Chicken built convenience. HPAI hit commercial turkeys — not reported broiler losses. Corn thirteen percent harvested. Ratings worse than last year. Crude ninety-five seventy-eight.

SHAWN: The important number isn’t always today’s price. Sometimes it’s the cost of being covered tomorrow. Stay disciplined.

HOST: Protein Pulse Drive Time. Shawn Sparks, The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Stay disciplined.