The United States is the largest beef producer and one of the largest beef exporters in the world. In order to remain competitive, our Nation’s beef producers and everyone else in the supply chain need reliable data to evaluate market conditions, identify trends, make purchasing decisions, and monitor price patterns.
USDA Market News – part of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service – provides the entire beef industry with equal access to the data they need with just the click of a button. Livestock, Poultry, and Grain Market News Division reporters gather and disseminate beef market information, ranging from feeder cattle to retail beef prices. From farm-to-fork, we have the cattle and beef markets covered.
USDA Market News administers a voluntary reporting program that captures valuable information from many points in the cattle and beef supply chain. Focusing on feeder cattle voluntary reporting, USDA Market News provides volume and weighted average price reporting, capturing prices on thousands of head of cattle. From the Plains of the Midwest, to the grass pastures of the Southeast, feeder cattle weighted average reports are valuable to producers, feedyards, and end users such as the CME index. At many of these same feeder markets, producers can find current slaughter cow and bull prices which facilitate timely livestock sales.
As we continue through the supply chain, the Livestock Mandatory Reporting (LMR) section of USDA Market News contains slaughter cattle reports, like the National Direct Slaughter Cattle Report, providing data on negotiated and grid sales for steers and heifers on a national basis. If you are looking for meat prices, look no further than LMR daily and weekly boxed beef market reporting. Daily and weekly reporting includes individual cut and grind items, in addition to primal and carcass cutout values. The wealth of beef transactions represented daily, weekly, and monthly brings transparency to the market.
Market data on byproducts, hides per piece, and a variety of additional meat market information is available online using the By-Product Price Report, the Tallow and Protein Report, and the Major Packer Hide Report. This series of voluntary reports includes the often used steer by –product drop value report, featured in many margin and profit-and-loss tools.
USDA Market News also provides grass-fed beef price and volume information through our voluntary local and regional reports – be sure to check out the newly revamped National monthly grass fed beef report. The report features wholesale and retail data collected from producers across the Nation, in addition to helpful charts, graphs, and comparisons.
Retail is the end of the supply chain for USDA Market News, where data is tabulated on to the National beef retail report. The report covers retail prices for over 29,000 major supermarket outlets. From boneless ribeye steaks to ground chuck, this voluntary report is the go-to report for volumes and weighted averages of featured Choice, Select, and Branded beef items.
From coast to coast, USDA Market News reporters capture the ever-changing beef market and publish their findings online for easy access. The combination of voluntary and mandatory reporting programs provide a seemingly endless stream of data.
USDA Market News takes great pride in following beef through all channels of production, bringing clarity to the beef markets, and offering a wide variety of data and information available to the public. Next time you are in the market for beef data, be sure to check out our reports.
