Issue 1: October 2026

This is the first issue of the Pork Monitor. It is written for a restaurant, barbecue business or caterer facing a supplier's price claim on pork. It reports market evidence. It does not estimate any supplier's cost and draws no conclusion about any contract.

The read

Wholesale pork values are well below where they were a year ago. The pork carcass cutout, USDA's estimated value of a standard hog carcass at the packing plant, was $84.22 per hundredweight in the week ending October 9, against $107.27 in the comparable week of 2025, a fall of 21.5%. Its four-week average is 22.0% lower. All six primal values are lower on the year, by very different amounts: the belly 34.0%, the ham 28.7% and the picnic 28.4%, against the loin 12.3%, the butt 9.5% and the rib 7.6%. A claim framed as "pork" may rest on any one of these, and which one matters.

None of these is the price of a cut a kitchen orders. The cutout and the primals are estimated values per 100 pounds, FOB plant, for a 215-pound carcass from barrows and gilts, across all sales types. A belly value is not a bacon price and a loin value is not a price for chops. The explanation below gives the specification.

The producer price indexes point the same way. The index for slaughter hogs is 21.0% below September 2025, and the index for fresh and frozen pork made in slaughtering plants is 28.3% below.

Retail has moved far less. The consumer price index for pork is 0.7% below September 2025. The average retail price of sliced bacon was $6.756 a pound, 7.3% lower, and of pork chops $4.219 a pound, 3.0% lower. These are different measures and not one price read at different points in the chain, so the gap between the wholesale and retail falls is not a margin, and this record cannot say what it is made of. What these figures establish is narrow: none of the September indexes or average prices and none of the October wholesale values is higher than a year earlier, so they do not support a general claim that pork prices rose on the year. They do not establish what happened to any particular supplier's costs.

Comparison dates matter. Against September 2024 the slaughter hog index is 6.6% higher, though it is 21.0% lower than September 2025; the producer index for fresh and frozen pork is lower against both years. And within the last four weeks the primals did not move together: the ham fell from $83.04 to $74.10 per hundredweight in the latest week, while the belly rose from $93.72 to $97.21.

The hog inventory is smaller. USDA's survey estimate of all hogs and pigs in the United States on September 1, 2026 was 74,302 thousand head, 1.5% fewer than a year earlier, with the breeding herd 1.0% smaller and market hogs 1.5% fewer. The report's own reliability statement shows that over the past 20 quarters its first estimate of this total has differed from its latest by more than this year's change at least once, and a head count on one date is not a measure of how much pork is produced. A smaller inventory alongside lower wholesale values is what the record shows; it holds no measure of demand, exports or cold storage, and it cannot say what drove the price.

The numbers

Two-year comparisons, where the record allows them: slaughter hog PPI +6.6% and pork PPI −20.8% against September 2024; pork CPI +0.9%; sliced bacon −2.9% and pork chops −2.5%; food away from home +7.3%. The hog inventory carries none.

The explanation

Five kinds of measure appear above and they answer different questions. The cutout and primal values are estimates USDA computes each week from reported sales of pork cuts at the plant. The producer price indexes measure the selling prices received by domestic producers and exclude imports: one for live hogs sold for slaughter, one for fresh and frozen pork made in slaughtering plants. The two consumer price indexes measure the change in prices urban consumers pay: one for pork at retail, one for meals and snacks bought away from home, which is not a restaurant's cost. The two average prices are retail prices per pound for two items. The NASS figures are counts of animals, not prices at all. None of them is a supplier's cost, and a movement in one does not fix a movement in another.

The weekly series are narrower than the word "pork" suggests, and none of them is the price of a cut a buyer orders. Report 2680 states the cutout as the estimated value of a standard 215-pound carcass, fifty-five to fifty-six percent lean with 0.55 to 0.70 inches of backfat at the last rib, from barrows and gilts only, in dollars per 100 pounds, FOB plant: priced at the packing plant, so freight to the buyer is not included. It is built from the prices and volume of pork cuts delivered and from average industry cutting yields, over one week of trade, Monday to Friday, across all destinations including export, and all sales types, delivery periods, refrigeration types and packaging styles, except specialty pork products. Whole-carcass trades in the week, if there are any, are averaged in at one to one. It is not a price paid for hogs and it does not cover sow or boar pork. It is a computed value for a whole carcass, not a price offered to any kitchen.

The six primal values are estimated values for parts of that same carcass, on the same basis, built from the individual cuts and their prices. They are not the price of any single cut: a belly value is not a bacon price, and a loin value is not a price for chops. The report does not list which cuts make up each primal or give their cutting yields, and it does not say whether a primal value is per 100 pounds of that primal or of carcass. A primal value is best read for its level against other weeks and its change on the year, not converted into a cost per pound of anything a kitchen receives.

The belly is the largest move on the year, and its two comparisons differ because of where last year stood. A year ago the belly averaged $168.60 per hundredweight over the four weeks and had fallen to $147.30 by the comparable week, so the four-week fall, 41.9%, is larger than the single-week fall, 34.0%. The ham runs the other way: its latest week, $74.10, is well below the three weeks before it, $83.44, $87.79 and $83.04, so its single-week fall, 28.7%, is larger than its four-week fall, 20.7%. The carcass cutout itself fell week by week across the four, from $89.94 to $88.69, $86.14 and $84.22. The rib holds the highest value of the six and the smallest fall on the year. On the latest week's comparison, the rib and butt primals are down by less than a tenth and the belly, ham and picnic primals by more than a quarter; on the four-week averages the butt is down 11.4% and the ham 20.7%, so the grouping depends on which comparison a claim uses.

The retail measures moved less than the wholesale ones. Sliced bacon at retail is 7.3% lower, September on September; the belly primal is 34.0% lower, the week ending October 9 against October 10, 2025. All pork chops are 3.0% lower; the loin primal is 12.3% lower. The record does not say which primal either retail item is cut from, and the periods differ. These figures show what each series did, not how a primal value passes into a retail price.

USDA's Food Price Outlook, in its update of September 25, 2026, puts pork consumer prices 0.6% higher from August 2025 to August 2026, meats 3.6% higher and food away from home 3.4% higher. It gives forecast intervals for 2027 of −8.1% to 10.1% for pork, −8.7% to 11.7% for meats, and 0.2% to 5.1% for food away from home. The pork interval is wide and runs from a fall to a rise.

The uncertainty

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

The cutout and primals run a week behind this month's beef cutout and CME cheddar quotes. Report 2680 normally publishes on Monday for the week ending the previous Friday, so the newest week in the source at this issue's run, on Sunday, October 18, was the week ending October 9, published October 12. The week ending October 16 was not yet published. The beef cutout and the CME cheddar series this record carries reach the week ending October 16, so a reader setting this cutout beside them is comparing different weeks.

The pork cutout is a comprehensive value: one weekly value across all sales types and all delivery periods. The boxed beef cutout this record carries is Choice and Select graded, the simple average of the week's daily values, from negotiated sales delivered within 0 to 21 days. They are not the same kind of measure, and a difference between them is partly a difference in what each counts.

A year-over-year comparison for the weekly series is against the week ending nearest 52 weeks earlier, within four days; here the week ending October 9, 2026 is compared with the week ending October 10, 2025. The four-week figures are simple averages of four weekly values, each week counting equally. Weighting those weeks by the volume traded behind them could give a different number. Each row is labelled for the method used.

Mandatory price reporting covers trade at reporting plants. It is not every transaction in the country.

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

The hog inventory is quarterly. The September 1 estimate published on September 24, and it is the newest supply figure this record holds; the next estimate is for December 1. NASS revises its estimates for the previous four quarters at each release, so the September 1, 2025 figure here is the one the September 2026 release prints and may differ from what was first published. The record holds no September 2024 reading, so the inventory carries no two-year comparison. The report gives weight groups in pounds and does not say whether they are live weights. The pig crop and farrowing figures the same report publishes are not parsed into this record.

The two retail average prices are U.S. city averages for all pork chops and for sliced bacon. They are what shoppers paid at retail, not a foodservice price and not a price for a particular cut, thickness or pack.

The USDA Food Price Outlook figures are year-over-year from August 2025 to August 2026, not September to September, which is why its pork figure is a rise where this issue's September index is a fall. The forecast intervals are for 2027. They cover pork, meats and food away from home as categories.

The cutout and primal values are USDA estimates built from reported sales, 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 pork increase.

Which product and which basis: the cut, how it is trimmed and packed, whether it is fresh or frozen, and which primal the supplier says it comes from. The weekly figures above are estimated primal values FOB plant on a barrow and gilt carcass, not the price of a case of any product, and in the latest week the six primals were lower on the year by amounts ranging from 7.6% to 34.0%.

Which dates: the date the original quote priced from, and the date the adjustment references. The ham primal went from $83.04 to $74.10 per hundredweight in one week; a quote priced from an earlier week can sit some way from the latest one.

Which series: the published series or supplier invoice behind the stated increase. Every series above is free and public. In the latest period each carries, the cutout, all six primals, both producer price indexes, the pork consumer price index and both retail average prices are lower than a year earlier; USDA's Food Price Outlook, which reads August, shows pork consumer prices 0.6% higher from August 2025 to August 2026.

The record

Sources and retrieval. The issue's own run is 2026-10-18T145155Z, captured October 18, 2026. Report 2680 delivers its whole history in one request, so this issue rests on that one run and no accumulated history. Every capture behind it, with its retrieval time and SHA-256, is listed in evidence.json.

• USDA AMS National Weekly Pork Report FOB Plant, comprehensive, report 2680, under mandatory price reporting: the estimated value of a 215-pound barrow and gilt carcass and its six primals, in dollars per 100 pounds, FOB plant, week ending Friday. Retained as the Datamart JSON and the printed PDF. Latest week ending October 9, 2026, published October 12.
• USDA NASS, Quarterly Hogs and Pigs, released September 24, 2026: all hogs and pigs, kept for breeding, market hogs, and market hogs by weight group, in thousands of head on September 1. The rolling Todays_Reports path returned HTTP 404 at all four candidate addresses and is recorded as failed in the capture, and the source as partial; the reading comes from the copy of the same release, hgpg0926.txt, retained from the ESMIS archive. The reading is complete.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, public API v2. PPI commodity indexes WPU0132 (slaughter hogs) and WPU02210444 (pork, fresh and frozen, unprocessed, all cuts, made in slaughtering plants); CPI-U CUUR0000SEFD (pork) and CUUR0000SEFV (food away from home); average prices APU0000FD3101 (all pork chops) and APU0000704111 (sliced bacon). Not seasonally adjusted. Latest month September 2026.
• USDA Economic Research Service, Food Price Outlook, CPI forecast table, update of September 25, 2026.
• USDA AMS Weekly Pork and Beef Variety Meat Report, 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.