Prime trends continue to chart new territory for the most premium quality grade and current conditions show reason for incentive. A potential directional shift up and to the right on the premium chart is not out of the question.
The redundancy of higher corn prices in the market discussion is bound to grow old, but it’s an important feature of the fed cattle trade now and will be moving forward. Cattle feeders have been more willing to sell finished cattle in recent weeks since corn prices have elevated the ration cost and feed conversion efficiency decreases at the end of the feeding period.
In our 2019 report, the aggregate packer CAB premium total came in at $92 million. The 2021 total has seen that total nearly double in only two years, resulting in $182 million in CAB premiums.
Certified Angus Beef carcasses surged during the second week of February posting the largest supply for that timeframe. All the important factors aligned to generate the rapid uptick in qualifying carcasses. Beginning with the fed cattle slaughter, that week featured 8.3% more harvested steers and heifers than the same week in 2021, when the previous record was posted.
Prime cutout values and grid premiums have been rich in the third and fourth quarters of the past two years. Yet the spillover into the first quarter this year shows that the market is reacting to the recently smaller availability, retreating back to the 2019 supply pace.
Starting in March 2020, disarray set in motion a chain of events leading to the fed cattle backlog from plant closures slowing the supply chain throughout 2021. While the market likes to avoid the unkown, the last two years put the beef business in uncharted territory.
The USDA January 1 cow herd inventory, published this Monday, confirmed a 2% decline in the beef cow herd, along with a 1% decline in feeder cattle supplies. This is relatively in line with earlier estimates, although some had projected the beef cow decline fractionally smaller than the USDA number.
Cattle supply is certainly not the issue, rather, it’s a COVID-induced absenteeism issue in many of the country’s packing plants. Packing plants experience increased worker absence, resulting in much smaller slaughter totals so far in January 2022.
Cattle and beef market dynamics in the past year were nothing if not volatile, and in some ways, unprecedented. Supply chain imbalances and processing sector issues have been the focal point of beef price inflation in the past two years.
December has started off on a high note in the fed cattle sector and all of us on the cattle side of the supply chain should be made well aware of what’s ahead in 2022.
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