Beef retail price continues to rise | Weekly Livestock Market Update
Meghan Grebner and Charley Martinez break down what’s happening with retail prices and export sales. They also preview next week's Cattle on Feed report.
Market highlights:
Live cattle prices close $200/cwt which is 28 cents down from last week. April live cattle prices ($200.35) were up 8 cents compared to a week ago, and March feeder cattle future prices ($277.58) were up 60 cents compared to last week. Choice box beef was at $319.57 end of this week, which is up 2% from last week. Select box beef was at $307.03 end of this week, which is up 1% from last week. Pork Cutout was $97.01, which is down 1% from last week. National Base Hog Carcass was up to $87.40, which is 2 cents higher than last week. April lean hog futures closed at $87.23 which is down 12 cents from a week ago.
Weekly Slaughter:
At the end of the week, cattle slaughter was 585,000 head, up 7000 from last week, but down 12,400 compared to a year ago. Hog slaughter was 2.43 million head, up 16,000 from the previous week and down 23,000 compared to year ago.
Meat Price Spreads (3/12/25):
In February, all fresh retail beef price increased to $8.31/lb, which is up from $8.15/lb in January. To put February’s price into perspective, these data have been recorded and reported in a dataset that goes back to July 1987, at which time the all fresh retail beef price was $2.13/lb. The price in February, is the highest monthly price to date in the dataset. In February 2024, the all fresh beef retail price was $7.83/lb, and the previous 5-year average was $6.48/lb. Additionally, through the summer months, prices got up to $8.20/lb in September. Thus, 2025 has already surpassed that threshold, and given seasonal trend expectations, one could expect price to continue to increase to new highs in 2025.
In February, retail pork price was $4.83/lb, which was down from $4.94/lb in January. The price in February, is the highest monthly price to date in the dataset. In February 2024, the retail pork price was $4.76/lb, and the previous 5-year average was $4.25/lb. Historically, price increases up to September and then decreases. Next months report will let up know if this trend holds.
Weekly Export Sales (3/13/2025):
Beef: Net sales- 14,300 MT-up 7% from the previous week, but down 13% from the prior 4-week average. Exports of 15,900 MT were up 21% from the previous week and 12% from the prior 4-week average. The destinations were primarily to South Korea (4,400 MT), Japan (4,400 MT), China (2,500 MT), Mexico (1,700 MT), and Taiwan (900 MT).
Pork: Net sales- 20,300 MT for 2025--a marketing-year low--were down 52% from the previous week and 35% from the prior 4-week average. Exports of 33,600 MT were up 4% from the previous week and 5% from the prior 4-week average. The destinations were primarily to Mexico (11,200 MT), South Korea (5,900 MT), Japan (4,700 MT), Colombia (2,800 MT), and China (2,600 MT).
Next week’s reports
» Cattle on Feed
» Livestock Slaughter
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