CME cattle futures have grabbed the attention in the U.S., but in China, hog futures are the focus. January hog futures on the Dalian exchange are at a new contract low of ¥14.07/kg which is down about 4 percent. March futures are down about 3 percent with higher volume and a 10 percent decline over 10 trading days. MARA reported October hog slaughter at 28.7 million head, which was up more than 3 percent from September and 36.7 percent compared to October 2023. For the January through October total, slaughter in 2023 is 271.1 million head, which is 17 percent above the same period in 2022. The volume of hog futures saw a huge year-over-year increase in November, up 163 percent, at a volume of about 19 percent over t...
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.