Macroeconomics Food Prices Drop Sharply in July, Down Nearly 4 Percent The average cost of food in July was down year-on-year by 3.7 percent with pork prices continuing to fall and the cost increases for other items like edible oil slowing. Last month also saw the largest decrease in the average price for food on an annualized basis since September 2017. The average cost of pork fell by 4.5 percent in July, while the average price for fresh vegetables was down by 4 percent. Meanwhile, cooking oil, dairy products, and egg prices were up by 7.2 percent, 2 percent, and 15.6 percent, respectively. However, these upticks were below the increases in June. In contrast, fresh fruit prices rose by 5.2 percent in July compared to 3.1 percent in Jun...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...
Let’s return briefly to the fake meat hype cycle, now sitting somewhere in a dusty corner of your mind, not entirely forgotten. What happened to all those products, known as plant-based alternative proteins? They were supposed to be as good as real meat—cheaper, more environmentally...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.