Last week was a good one for hog prices. On Friday morning the national average negotiated price for market hogs was $91.74/cwt. That was $10.23 higher than a week earlier. The higher price appears to have been driven by some packers who needed additional hogs to complete their weekly slaughter plans.
U.S. hog slaughter over the last eight weeks (since the beginning of March) has been up 0.15%. The heavy weight market hog inventory in the March Hogs and Pigs report implied slaughter in this period would be up 0.17%. The difference is zilch and USDA’s March market hog inventory numbers are looking very good.
If summer marketings reflect the lightweight March market hog inventory, then May-August hog slaughter is expected to be down 0.4% year-over-year.
After taking a big jump in 2022 and 2023, inflation has slowed dramatically. The year-over-year increase in the consumer price index in March was 2.39%. That is the smallest annual increase since February 2021. Lower inflation should mean slower increases in cost of production for both farmers and packers.
The average retail price of pork during March was $4.951 per pound. That was 11.3 cents higher than the month before and 15.8 cents higher than a year ago. March pork prices were the highest since September 2024.
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