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 the weekly boxed beef trade report for week ending October 10th. The daily spot Choice boxed beef cutout ended the week last Friday at $203, which was $2.77 lower compared to the previous Friday, but it has started to slow down the steep decline that the market has endured. The daily cutout has dropped over $40 since the last week of August. That was compared to $247.67 the same day last year when it jumped over $9 that one week a year ago. There were 1,026 loads sold in the daily box beef cutout which was about 14 percent of the total volume and the biggest weekly spot sales in some time.
The comprehensive or weekly average Choice cutout, which includes all types of sales, including the daily spot cutout was $207.51, which was $5.05 lower and last year at this time the cutout was $243.48. This year, we dropped about $34 since the last week of August and about $52 since the week before Memorial Day. We are definitely following last year’s summer plunge but at least the volume of sales are starting to improve.
There were 7,581 total loads sold, which was 791 loads higher than the previous week. The formula sales were at 3,368 loads, which was 34 loads lower than last week and was 44 percent of the total loads sold. The big drop in prices has finally started to improve the sales volume.
Exports, as reported on the weekly boxed beef report, were at 593 loads which was three loads higher than the previous week. Sales to our North American Free Trade Agreement neighbors totaled 204 loads and 389 loads were shipped overseas.
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