Issue 1: October 2026

This is the first issue of the Chicken Monitor. It is written for a restaurant, caterer or food-service buyer facing a supplier's price claim on chicken. It reports market evidence. It does not estimate any supplier's cost and draws no conclusion about any contract.

The read

Where this record can compare chicken prices with a year earlier, the wholesale and producer measures are lower, and the retail ones moved less and in both directions.

The producer price index for slaughter chickens is 5.0% below September 2025, and the index for young chickens, whole and in parts, is 12.5% below. USDA's Economic Research Service puts its wholesale broiler composite at 91.2 cents a pound in September, 13.7% lower than a year earlier. The monthly wholesale prices in USDA's National Chicken Report, which price individual cuts, cannot yet be compared with a year earlier: this record began collecting them in September 2026, and the earliest month it reads is August.

What that report can show now is its latest reporting month against the one before. In the block this record files as September, the five weeks from August 31 to October 2, boneless skinless breast averaged 121.18 cents a pound, against 121.08 in August, a rise of 0.1%. The other five rows this issue carries were lower: the national composite whole bird by 0.3%, to 116.64 cents; bulk leg quarters by 0.5%, to 53.50 cents; drumsticks by 2.6%, to 55.49 cents; tenderloins by 4.8%, to 113.14 cents; and whole wings by 9.8%, to 110.38 cents from 122.36. These are wholesale prices for fresh domestic product, the parts priced FOB and the whole bird delivered. The explanation below gives what each row prices.

Retail moved less than wholesale. The consumer price index for chicken is 0.6% below September 2025, and the ERS retail broiler composite, at 241.3 cents a pound, is 2.3% below. The average retail price of boneless chicken breast was $4.203 a pound, 0.7% higher than a year earlier; of a fresh whole chicken $2.064, 0.1% higher; and of bone-in chicken legs $1.739, 3.2% lower. These are different measures from the wholesale prices and not one price read at different points in the chain, so the gap between the wholesale and retail moves is not a margin, and this record cannot say what it is made of.

Slaughter was about level with a year earlier. In the week ending October 10, 172,328 thousand young chickens were slaughtered under federal inspection, 0.2% fewer than in the comparable week the report gives for 2025, at an average live weight of 6.63 pounds against 6.77, 2.1% lighter. Year to date, head slaughtered is 1.8% higher. These are birds and live weight, not pounds of meat, and the record cannot say what they did to price.

What these figures establish is narrow. Every wholesale and producer measure here that carries a year-earlier figure is lower than a year ago, so they do not support a general claim that chicken prices rose on the year. At retail, boneless breast and whole chickens are fractionally higher; the chicken consumer index, bone-in legs and the ERS retail composite are lower. From the August to the September reporting month, the wholesale boneless skinless breast price was essentially unchanged and the other five rows this issue carries fell, whole wings and tenderloins the most. These six are not the whole report: it prices other cuts, and not all of them fell; the boneless thigh average rose. The figures do not establish what happened to any particular supplier's costs.

The numbers

Wholesale, USDA AMS Monthly National Chicken Report (report 3649), in cents per pound, weighted average for the reporting month. The block this record files as September runs from August 31 to October 2, 2026, and the one filed as August from August 3 to August 28, 2026. This record holds no 2025 reading of this report, so it carries no year-over-year figure.

Against a year earlier:

Two-year comparisons, where the record allows them, against September 2024: slaughter chicken PPI −13.7% and young chicken PPI −16.9%; chicken CPI +0.9%; boneless breast at retail +5.8%, whole chicken +4.3% and bone-in legs −7.2%; food away from home +7.3%; ERS wholesale composite −20.0%, retail composite −2.2% and spread +13.0%. The report 3649 rows and the slaughter figures carry none.

The explanation

Six kinds of measure appear above and they answer different questions. The report 3649 figures are weighted average wholesale prices for named cuts over a reporting month. The producer price indexes measure the selling prices received by domestic producers and exclude imports: one for chickens sold for slaughter, one for young chickens sold whole and in parts. The two consumer price indexes measure the change in prices urban consumers pay: one for chicken at retail, one for meals and snacks bought away from home, which is not a restaurant's cost. The three average prices are retail prices per pound for three items. The ERS figures are composites ERS computes, one wholesale and one retail, and the difference between them. The slaughter figures are counts of birds, not prices. None of them is a supplier's cost, and a movement in one does not fix a movement in another.

The report 3649 rows are narrower than the words "breast" or "wings" suggest. The report sets every row under a heading that gives the product group, the market, fresh or frozen, the word "Conventional", and the delivery basis, and each row here sits under "Domestic - Fresh - Conventional". For no cut does it state a grade, a pack, a trim or a size. It does not define "Conventional", and it does not spell out its abbreviations "B/S" and "WOG"; this issue reads "B/S" as boneless skinless, the usual trade meaning, but the report does not say so. Each row carries a price range, a weighted average and the pounds traded, and the report does not say what the average is weighted by or which sales it includes. The breast row is "Breast - B/S", not the line-run breast or the breast with ribs, which the report prices on rows of their own. The wing row is "Wings - Whole"; the report carries no row for wing portions, so this is not a price for cut wings. The drumstick row is not bone-in legs, which the report prices separately. The leg quarter row is "Leg quarters - Bulk", and the report does not say what the bulk pack is. None of these rows is frozen product.

The parts rows are priced FOB and the whole bird delivered, and the report names no shipping point for the parts rows and no destination for the national composite. So the whole bird and the parts are not priced on one delivery basis, and their levels should not be set against each other. The national composite whole bird is not a price for any one bird size, which the report gives on rows of its own. The report does not say what the composite combines; in the October 2 report its pounds equal those of the national composite WOG and whole-body rows added together, and its price is their pound-weighted average.

The report's month is a block of whole weeks, not a calendar month, and the report labels it only by its dates. The block this record files as September runs five weeks, from Monday, August 31 to Friday, October 2, and the one filed as August four weeks, from August 3 to August 28. This record files each block under the month holding most of its days. Because the two blocks differ in length, the pounds traded in them are not comparable, and this issue sets out only September's. The change column compares the two months' weighted averages and nothing else. The report is dated October 2, the last day of its own period.

The slaughter report counts young chickens slaughtered under federal inspection, in thousands of head, in four weight classes in pounds, with an average live weight for each class and for the total. In the week ending October 10 the four classes, lightest first, were 23,891, 50,474, 50,123 and 47,840 thousand head. The report says the lightest class is normally marketed bone-in into fast food and food service and may include Cornish hens, and the heaviest is normally marketed deboned or as roasters. A lower average live weight means less live weight for the same number of birds, but live weight is not ready-to-cook product, and the record holds no measure of meat produced.

The ERS composites are named in ERS's file as the wholesale broiler composite, the retail broiler composite and the wholesale-retail broiler spread, in cents per pound. The file does not say which cuts or weights make up either composite, or at what point the wholesale composite is priced. The wholesale composite is not the report 3649 national composite whole bird: the composite for calendar September was 91.2 cents a pound, and the whole bird in report 3649's September block 116.64. The spread is the retail composite less the wholesale one, 241.3 less 91.2, and it rose 6.3% on the year because the wholesale composite fell further than the retail one. That is arithmetic between two composites, not a finding about anyone's margin.

USDA's Food Price Outlook, in its update of September 25, 2026, puts poultry consumer prices 0.5% higher from August 2025 to August 2026, meats, poultry and fish 3.5% higher, food away from home 3.4% higher and all food 2.7% higher. Its forecast intervals for 2027 are −5.4% to 8.8% for poultry, −4.8% to 10.8% for meats, poultry and fish, 0.2% to 5.1% for food away from home, and −2.7% to 7.0% for all food. The poultry interval runs from a fall to a rise.

The uncertainty

This is the first issue of this title. It compares the BLS, ERS and slaughter series with the same period a year earlier and, where the record holds it, two years earlier. It compares the report 3649 rows only with the month before. Month-to-month movement in the BLS and ERS series is not in this issue's computed set, so nothing here measures their September against August.

The report 3649 rows carry no year-over-year comparison. Each report prints its current month and, as "Previous Months Trading", the month before; the record reads each report's current month, and the earliest it reads is August 2026. A year-over-year figure for this series will first exist when the record holds the same reporting month a year apart: the August 2027 block, in the report due about the start of September 2027. Next year's block filed as August need not cover the same weeks, or the same number of weeks, as this year's.

Each report 3649 average rests on the pounds traded behind it, and those differ widely. Of the six rows here, whole wings traded the fewest pounds in September, 2,569 thousand, and the national composite whole bird the most, 38,009 thousand. Each change is one month's average against another's and says nothing about how prices moved within either month.

This issue carries no thigh figure: neither thigh row is in its computed set. The report prices bone-in and boneless thighs on two rows. The bone-in thigh row trades the fewest pounds of any row in the report, so its average rests on very little volume. In the October 2 report the boneless thigh row prints a low end of its price range that is most likely a misprint, and this issue does not quote that range.

The slaughter week ending October 10 is marked preliminary, and the record holds the figure as first published. The report's year-ago figures are for a "comparable week" it does not date, and its year-to-date totals compare the two years over comparable periods as the report states them. This record holds five weeks of the slaughter report, so the year-over-year figures above are the report's own, not this record's.

The September producer price indexes are preliminary, and BLS may revise them for up to four months after first publication.

BLS marks October 2025 "Data unavailable due to the 2025 lapse in appropriations" for the chicken and food away from home consumer price indexes and for all three average prices. The next issue's October rows for those five series will carry no year-earlier figure. Both producer price indexes have an October 2025 value.

The three retail average prices are U.S. city averages for boneless chicken breast, fresh whole chicken and bone-in chicken legs. They are what shoppers paid at retail, not a foodservice price and not a price for a particular pack or brand.

The USDA Food Price Outlook figures are year-over-year from August 2025 to August 2026, not September to September, and its poultry category covers more than chicken. The forecast intervals are for 2027 and cover categories, not chicken.

The report 3649 prices are averages of reported trade, not an offer available to any particular buyer, and a restaurant's delivered cost includes processing, freight and terms this record does not see.

The buyer's question

Ask the supplier three things before accepting a chicken increase.

Which product and which basis: the cut, whether it is fresh or frozen, how it is packed, and whether the price is FOB or delivered. A whole-wing price is not a price for cut wings, and a drumstick price is not a bone-in leg price. In the report 3649 rows above, the parts are priced FOB and the whole bird delivered, and none of them is the price of a case of any product.

Which dates: the month or week the original quote priced from and the one the adjustment references. Report 3649's months are blocks of whole weeks, and the block this record files as September ran from August 31 to October 2. Whole wings went from 122.36 to 110.38 cents a pound between the August and September months; a quote priced from one month can sit some way from the next.

Which series: the published series or supplier invoice behind the stated increase. Every series above is free and public. Against a year earlier, both chicken producer price indexes and the ERS wholesale composite are lower. At retail the measures are mixed: the retail average price of boneless breast is 0.7% higher, while the chicken consumer price index is 0.6% lower, bone-in legs 3.2% lower and the ERS retail composite 2.3% lower. This record holds no year-earlier figure for the report 3649 cut prices, so a claim that a wholesale cut price rose on the year cannot be checked against it here.

The record

Sources and retrieval. The issue's own run is 2026-10-18T145048Z, captured October 18, 2026. Report 3649 prints its current month and, as "Previous Months Trading", the month before. This record takes its August figures from the report of September 1, retained by earlier runs, and they match the previous-month columns of the October 2 report. Every slaughter figure in this issue comes from the report of October 15; the slaughter reports for the four weeks before it stand behind only the count of weeks this record holds. The six earlier runs, 2026-09-23T145458Z, 2026-09-23T150941Z, 2026-09-25T220400Z, 2026-10-02T221955Z, 2026-10-09T221622Z and 2026-10-16T221612Z, hold the report 3649 for the August block, earlier copies of the report for the September block, the slaughter reports for the four weeks before the latest, and an earlier copy of the latest week's report. Those earlier copies of the September report and of the latest week's report are byte-identical to the issue run's. Every capture behind it, with its retrieval time and SHA-256, is listed in evidence.json.

• USDA AMS Livestock, Poultry and Grain Market News, Monthly National Chicken Report (report 3649): the report of October 2, 2026, for 8/31/2026 to 10/2/2026, and the report of September 1, 2026, for 8/3/2026 to 8/28/2026. Weighted average prices in cents per pound and pounds traded, by cut, market, fresh or frozen, and delivery basis. Retained as the printed PDF.
• USDA AMS, Weekly Young Chickens Slaughtered Under Federal Inspection (NW_PY002), report of October 15, 2026, for the week ending October 10, 2026, marked preliminary, and the reports for the four weeks before it. Retained as text.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, public API v2. PPI commodity indexes WPU0141 (slaughter chickens) and WPU022203 (young chickens, whole and in parts); CPI-U CUUR0000SEFF01 (chicken) and CUUR0000SEFV (food away from home); average prices APU0000FF1101 (boneless chicken breast), APU0000706111 (fresh whole chicken) and APU0000706212 (bone-in chicken legs). Not seasonally adjusted. Latest month September 2026.
• USDA Economic Research Service, retail prices for beef, pork and poultry cuts: the wholesale broiler composite, the retail broiler composite and the wholesale-retail broiler spread, which ERS computes. Latest month September 2026. Retained as CSV.
• USDA Economic Research Service, Food Price Outlook, CPI forecast table, update of September 25, 2026.
• USDA AMS Daily National Broiler Market At-a-Glance (report 2740) of October 16, 2026, retained and not parsed, so it contributes no figure to this issue.

Method: every figure in this issue appears in numbers.json, regenerated from the data files by tools/issue.py. Capture files are hashed into an external timestamp chain anchored by RFC 3161 tokens from two timestamp authorities, which show they existed unchanged by the anchor date. An OpenTimestamps proof is stored for this edition's anchor; its Bitcoin attestation is collected by a later upgrade run. An external timestamp shows when a captured record existed. It does not show that a source's figure was correct or that a quoted price was available to every buyer.

Corrections: none. This issue is the first of this title.

Next issue: after the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases October producer price indexes on November 13, 2026.