Slumping cutout values are part of the reason for the hog market’s dismal performance this fall. Unfortunately, seasonal patterns don’t offer much encouragement.
Hog futures have been under pressure since early September, with the December contract on Monday sinking to its lowest close since July 2024 and marking the lowest finish for a nearby contract since December 2020. Pork production remains near steady with year-ago levels as slaughter counts trail 2025 by less than 1%.
When combined with expectations of lower per capita pork consumption in the U.S. this year, cutout values have declined nearly 25% from the peak notched during BLT season this past summer. With the final quarter of the year under way, cutout is entering a period when seasonal pressure is likely to increase, limiting the ability for cash fundamentals to reverse the price downtrend in hogs.
Pork cutout’s fourth quarter high has landed in the first half of October in four of the past five years, with the lone exception occurring in early November. Four out of five years have also seen the low price over that time come in early December, meaning if seasonal patterns persist, cutout has likely already seen its highs for the year and could still see even lower prices ahead.
That seasonal weakness is also evident in the market more generally across the timeframe, as seen in the chart below.
Excepting brief periods in 2022 and 2024, pork cutout spent most of the time below its October 1 level. This shows that even if a mild bounce in cutout occurs, the October 1 high typically serves as a stiff resistance that is rarely surpassed until the following year.
Demand for hams in the holiday season may provide a mild boost to cutout, though most sourcing by retailers typically occurs a few weeks in advance and recent history has shown it is often not enough to carve fresh highs in the closing weeks of the year. Zooming out to the annual view, we can see pork cutout typically sets annual lows in early January.
That means seasonal pressure could continue early into Q1 of 2027 as well, though some may argue that the earlier beginning to the seasonal decline could mean that prices may bottom earlier than usual as well.
Consumers continue to show resilience in the face of high beef prices, still not opting to substitute pork as a cheaper alternative to meet their protein needs despite cutout falling to multi-year lows while boxed beef remains near or above year-ago levels that already strained consumer food budgets in 2025.
Pork also finds itself competing in a landscape that has seen Americans turning to chicken as a value protein at a scale that is hard to replicate. U.S. domestic consumption of chicken has increased 68.7% since 2000, while pork consumption has increased only 16.6%. Retail prices for chicken breast average $4.203 across the U.S. in the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report, about a penny less than the $4.219 average for pork chops.
The explosion in broiler production in recent decades has kept supplies high even as consumer demand has kept pace, which in turn has led to low prices in the meat aisle and some erosion of pork’s dominance as the primary budget-friendly protein option.