The daily spot Choice box beef cutout ended the week on Friday, August 14 at $214.24, which was $8.77 higher compared to previous Friday. Last year, it was $238.69 on Friday, which was about $22 higher last year, however, last year's prices was impacted by the big packing plant fire.

This week the cutout continued to climb higher and was $220.86 on Tuesday, August 18 which is a normal seasonal rally this time of the year for grilling. The weekly total for the daily cutout was 711 loads, which was about 10% of the weekly total loads sold. 

The weekly average Choice cutout, which includes all types of sales, including the daily Choice cutout was $204.89, which was $2.27 higher, creeping higher as it follows the daily Choice cutout. Next week, we should see a bigger jump higher as the daily cutout prices were quite a bit higher this week.

The big news this week was there were 7,289 total loads sold for the week, which was 877 loads higher than the previous week.