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. Here is his report of weekly boxed beef trade for the week ending May 21. At the bottom of his commentary, you can click on the LISTEN BAR to hear Ed's comments.
The daily spot Choice box beef cutout ended the week last Fri at $225.96 which was $7.40 hgr compared to previous Friday but it had dropped a little at the end of the week. There were 488 loads sold for the week in the daily box beef cutout which was only 8% of the total volume
The Comprehensive or weekly average Choice cutout which includes all types of sales including the daily spot cutout was $215.47 which was $8.32 higher on the heels of the daily spot jump and also quite a few formulas were based on last week’s big jump and formula sales have much more volume than the daily spot trade.
There were 5784 total loads sold which was 1063 loads lower than the previous week. That was a big drop but many retail operations would have already gotten their Memorial day product the previous week and won’t reorder until they see just how good holiday sales were.
The formula sales were at 3517 loads which was 45 loads higher than last week. It was about 61 percent of the total loads sold this week and when you compare that to the 488 daily spot loads you can see why the formula sales have such a tremendous impact on the average prices for the week.
Exports as reported on the Boxed Beef report represent primarily muscle cuts and were 579 loads which was 420 fewer loads. 112 loads were sold to our NAFTA Neighbors and 467 loads were shipped overseas.
The out-front sales which won’t be delivered for at least 22 days totalled 710 loads which was 744 loads lower than last week but that was a normal seasonal spike last week and seasonal drop this week.
Taking a look at the weekly avg primal cut prices. The Choice chuck and round primals were both about $6 higher. The Choice middle meat- including the rib and loin were both about $15 higher and the Daily spot Choice rib had jumped 39 dollars in 8 working days and the Choice loin followed the same situation and both of them have helped to widen the daily Choice Select spread.
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