48 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN August 2026 MARKET MAKERS AND TAKERS THROUGH THE REST OF ‘26 PEERS JEFF STOLLE | NC VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING As the calendar moves into the back half of 2026, a number of cyclical and fundamental factors are combining with some “extra-market” factors to – at a minimum – slow the upward trajectory of markets throughout the cattle and beef complex. And, taking an objective look at the market landscape moving forward over the short to medium term, one must give at least some credence to the notion that cycle highs may have been stamped into place. At a minimum, it seems obvious that positive margins in the cattle feeding sector will be more difficult to come by in the foreseeable future as the appreciation in dollars-per-head values throughout the cattle production sectors of the industry – fueled by a prolonged liquidation of U.S. beef cow numbers and the closure of the U.S. border to feeder cattle imports from Mexico due to the northern advance of New World screwworm cases – appears to have run its course. The industry will now have to sort its way through some excess infrastructure at both the cattle feeding and packing levels until either attrition of participants or an eventual rebuilding of beef cow numbers (or more likely a combination of both) results in a closer balance between bunk space/shackle space and available supply of calves and yearlings. At the packing level, the attrition is already underway, with Tyson having announced the closure of their Lexington harvest facility and the single-shift operation of their Amarillo, Texas, facility in late 2025. Additionally, JBS announced in late June that its Souderton, Penn., plant would be shuttered by mid-August. Nonetheless, NC-MRS modeling as of the first full week of July continues to point to $200-plus per-head operating losses at the packing level, even as at least one of two major facilities (JBS-Greeley and Cargill Meat Solutions-Fort Morgan) has essentially been offline for the past four months due to labor relations issues. Can the packing sector withstand the next year without further downsizing? Time will tell. But, for now, harvest plants appear stuck between what is likely the tightest overall supply window of the cycle and a consumer that is, at least to some extent, tiring of more-than-moderately elevated prices in the retail case and on restaurant menus. I’m not sure that I want to call a USDA Choice boxed beef index that has essentially gone sideways between $390 and $400 per hundredweight from April 1 through July 1 “bearish” – but it is definitely not “normal” from a seasonal sense (See Figure 1). What is “normal” is for boxed beef values to struggle in July. I am a bit concerned about the product market’s reaction short term if that seasonal softness results in a significant departure from a months-long narrow price range to the downside. As the Trump administration continues to target retail beef prices as a particularly problematic piece of overall affordability issues for U.S. consumers, USDA/FSIS data indicates that fresh beef imports during the first six months of 2026 were up 10.2 percent vs. the same time frame Figure 1 CONTINUED ON PAGE 50
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