Agricultural News
Boxed Beef Sales and Imports Jump as Retailers Prepare for Holidays
Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:32:54 CDT
On a regular basis, Ed Czerwein of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Market News Office in Amarillo, Texas offers a review of the previous week's boxed beef trade. In the weekly boxed beef trade for week ending Friday, April 17th, the daily spot Choice box beef cutout ended the week at $257.79 which was $1.28 higher but the cutout had been above $260 on Wednesday and Thursday losing over $3.00 the last two days of the week. There were 670 loads sold for the week in the daily box beef cutout. It was about ten percent of the total volume. Click on the LISTEN BAR below to listen to Ed's comments about the weekly boxed beef trade
The comprehensive or weekly average Choice cutout which includes all types of sales including the daily spot cutout was $255.96 which was 52 cents higher. The rib which has really pushed the cutout higher in recent weeks has quit going up and was close to steady for the week.
There were 6,374 total loads sold which was 876 loads higher than the previous week was helped out by increases in both outfront sales and exports.
The formula sales were at 3,306 loads which was 130 loads higher than last week and are about 52 percent of the total loads sold.
Exports as reported on the weekly box beef report were at 959 loads which was 471 loads higher and almost double than the previous week. There were 228 loads sold to our North American Free Trade Agreement neighbors and 731 loads were shipped overseas.
The outfront sales were at 1,070 loads which was 430 loads higher than last week. We were thankful to see this jump since this was normally one of the weeks during the year that we have a very big spike in outfront sales usually above 1,500 loads as buyers purchase product for Mothers Day and Memorial Day features.
Taking a look at the primal cuts, the choice chuck, and round primals were one to two lower again and the ribs were almost steady which tops them out after many weeks of a strong rally. However, Choice loins did continue to climb and were nine higher. The loins and rib had carried the cutout higher and pretty much by themselves due to the tremendous rally but they are starting to be helped by the fifty percent trimmings which began their seasonal rally. Fifties are used by many sausage and hot dog makers but have really skyrocketed from 108 to 130 in one week. They are no doubt enhanced by the declining FIS slaughter rates at a time when demand has increased.
The Cow Cutout and the 90 percent trimmings were both two to almost three higher as the demand for ground beef and sausage items increase for grilling and ball parks.
The latest report of imported meat passed for entry into the US for April 11, showed that week we imported 26,390 metric tons of fresh beef which was a about the same as last week and equates to over 58 million pounds imported for that one week which would be a second very big week. Year-to-date for the first 15 weeks of this year we are running 40 percent higher fresh beef imports than last year and Australia was up 86 percent and New Zealand was up 28 percent.
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