The NCAA “March Madness” basketball tournament starts this week; that is typically a major driver of demand for chicken wings – with the other drivers New Years and the NFL Super Bowl. According to the National Chicken Council, Americans ate 1.45 billion wings during the February Super Bowl; with two wings per bird, that is 725 million birds, or about 7.7 percent of the total 2022 broiler slaughter of 9.43 billion birds. Consider that is almost a whole month’s slaughter of birds to produce the wings that are, incredibly, consumed in one day. Anyway, the market is different going into the college basketball tournament this year. High demand in 2021, and COVID related bottlenecks, were bullish for wing prices. D...
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk markets saw diverging trends this week as Capesize vessel rates surged on strong demand while Panamax and smaller vessel classes saw mostly steady/firmer trade. The situation in the Persian Gulf continues to deteriorate with hopes for an Iran-Oman managed system o...
Energy: Fewer Routes, More Pressure Brent crude is back above $100, while WTI has closed higher for seven consecutive sessions as multiple supply routes come under pressure and the market runs out of workarounds. U.S. forces destroyed five Iranian crude-oil carriers Tuesday after Iran attempted...
Beef packer margins declined to $199/head last week, down $60 from the prior week as the Choice cutout retreated while fed cattle prices were steady. The cutout fell nearly $8/cwt to $374/cwt, while fed cattle held near $219/cwt, narrowing packer spreads after their sharp August recovery. Despi...