Last Friday, we reported on the new Executive Order from the Administration on various competitive issues for agriculture and the meat sector. As we mentioned, USDA will issue a new rule on meat labeling with regard to what can be labelled as “Product of USA.” Secretary Vilsack added some clarity to that effort in his remarks at an event in Council Bluffs, Iowa. First, the issue. In June, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) filed a petition with the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) to change the current regulations that allow meat products to be labeled Production of the USA if the product included imported product which had been processed or packaged at an FSIS inspected facility. The U.S. Cattlemen&rsq...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures crashed on social media rumors that ICE raided one or possibly three fed cattle packing plants in Kansas Monday night or Tuesday morning. Operations at one plant have been disrupted and production curtailed. Outcomes for shipping via the Strait of Ho...
Key Takeaways: The expansion of biofuel-driven soybean crushing was expected to increase soymeal supplies and pressure prices as soyoil became a larger driver of crush economics, but soymeal has instead retained considerable value. Strong domestic and global feed demand has helped absorb addit...
Beef packer margins improved to $176/head last week, up $19 from the prior week as the Choice cutout edged higher while fed cattle prices eased. The cutout rose to $376/cwt while fed cattle slipped to $222/cwt, modestly widening packer profits. Margins remain well above year-ago levels despite...
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.