John Nalivka

John Nalivka is the president of Sterling Marketing, Inc., which provides economic research and market advisory services to the livestock and meat industries. He became affiliated with Sterling in 1991 as executive vice president and he has owned the company since 1994. Nalivka serves clients across the red meat supply chain from producers to end-users.

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Long term financial success for the beef industry will require fostering market approaches that are consistent with the future direction of the industry, says John Nalivka who supports a CME Beef Cutout contract.
Price discovery - or lack thereof - has been a topic of discussion in the cattle industry for decades.
Data from USDA’s monthly cattle on feed reports and rising feeder cattle prices in July suggest cattle feeders have pen space to fill and the backlog of cattle is now diminishing.
Since the week of May 16 when the beef cutout hit record highs, the price has fallen 56%. Simultaneously, weekly beef production has increased 29% and carcass weights are averaging 37 pounds more than last year.
The U.S. beef industry is a forage-based industry and that one distinction from the pork and poultry industries will hinder any future vertical integration, says John Nalivka.
Increased weights plagued the fish and seafood industry just as it affected cattle and hog carcass weights throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. cattle slaughter was up an estimated 25% over the previous holiday-shortened week as beef packers gradually return to near-normal capacity utilization.
Some operational changes made by the packing and processing centers are likely to remain after the COVID-19 pandemic is over, leaving some higher costs in the supply-chain.
Plant closings and slowdowns are major symptoms of the meat and poultry industries’ disruption due to COVID-19 and product distribution and livestock production are also critical to a smoothly running supply chain.
The unprecedented events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic have led to a severe economic downturn and will impact livestock markets going forward.