Beef packer margins abandoned their two-week streak of positive numbers and fell $102/head last week to -$47. The move was expected as the Choice cutout was steady/weaker across the week while fed cattle prices jumped $8-10/cwt higher. The weaker margins are still not as bad as recent history, however, and are in-line with values recorded for most of 2024. WPI does not have evidence of this, but our feeling, based on conversations with industry players, is that economist-estimated margins of -$30 to -40/head are actually breakeven or slightly profitable. The reasoning is that such margins are likely within the range where plants can either make minor tweaks to labor and staffing or procurement strategies and turn a profit. Or, packers&rsquo...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.