BBQ Meat Price Report – February 2026

The MSC Market Desk · reviewed by John Kirker · Published March 2, 2026 · Data: February 2026 USDA AMS reports

The Take

Opinion – the desk’s own read, not advice.

If we’re spending our own grocery budget this month, we’re steering hard away from ribeye and spare ribs – both are sitting at or near window-highs, and that’s exactly when we tell people to wait a cycle. Pork belly’s 26.2% collapse to $3.67/lb is the real story here, and it’s the one we’d act on: that’s the cheapest belly this window has shown, and bacon, porchetta, or a cured-belly project all get meaningfully more affordable overnight.

Our other move is toward chuck roast, down 11.4% to $7.09/lb – it’s the rare beef cut actually getting cheaper while the rest of the case climbs, and it braises just as well as it did in December when it cost two dollars more. We’d bank a couple of chuck roasts in the freezer now and let the ribeye binge wait for a calmer month.

The scoreboard (February 2026 grocery features, national averages)

Full live table for every cut: Meat Prices This Week.

The movers

February’s scoreboard has a split personality. Beef climbed almost everywhere you look, while pork mostly retreated and chicken drifted sideways. Start with ribeye, which jumped 20.1% month-over-month to $17.26/lb – not this window’s top price (that was $18.79 back in October 2025), but a sharp enough move that shoppers who blinked in January are paying real money for it now. Beef short ribs (plate) rose the same 20% to $9.73/lb, and spare ribs matched that pace too, at $4.08/lb – which happens to be this window’s high, meaning you haven’t paid more for spare ribs at any point we’ve tracked. Beef ribs themselves are up 5.1% on the month to $5.16/lb but the eye-popping number there is year-over-year: up 42.5% from a year ago.

Brisket added 11.5% to land at $8.71/lb, and prime rib rose 9.7% to $11.88/lb – both still shy of their window highs ($9.85 and $15.49 respectively), so there’s room left if the beef complex keeps tightening. Burgers, the everyday ground-beef staple, climbed 15.9% to $6.64/lb, closing in on the window-high of $6.77 set back in December. If you’re wondering whether this is a beef-only story, chuck roast says no: it fell 11.4% to $7.09/lb, and tri-tip dropped 15.9% to $7.78/lb, both pulling back from richer territory earlier in the window.

On the pork side, the story is relief. Pork belly cratered 26.2% to $3.67/lb – a new window-low, a striking reversal for a cut that’s fed the bacon-price conversation for over a year. Pork tenderloin fell 11.8% to $4.34/lb, and pork butt/shoulder eased another 6% to $2.84/lb, sitting near its own recent floor. See our pork belly guide for what that swing means for bacon math this spring.

Poultry is the quiet corner of the board. Turkey breast spiked 15.7% to $6.55/lb – also a window-high – while whole chicken ticked up 5.6% to $2.62/lb. Chicken quarters and wings both eased slightly (-4.2% and -5.3%), and chicken thighs barely moved (+1.3%). Double-smoked ham jumped 18.4% to $5.46/lb, its second straight month at a window-high, worth flagging for anyone planning ahead for spring holiday tables.

Where the deals are

Where you shop still matters more than usual this month. Spare ribs run cheapest in Alaska at $2.99/lb against a Southwest high of $4.32. Pork belly’s relief shows up unevenly too – Southeast shoppers are already at $3.87/lb while Hawaii sits way up at $6.16. The widest regional gap on the board belongs to turkey breast: Southeast at $4.58/lb versus a startling $9.82/lb in the Southwest, a better-than two-to-one spread on the same cut in the same month. For steak money, filet mignon splits $11.54 in the Southwest against $24.45 in the Northeast – reason enough to shop around before a special-occasion dinner.

Wholesale watch

The boxed beef cutout – the wholesale benchmark that leads retail by weeks – held essentially flat, up just 1.9% on the month. That’s a far gentler move than what showed up at the retail counter for ribeye, spare ribs, and short ribs, which suggests some of February’s sharpest retail jumps reflect promotional timing and tight case supply as much as a fresh wholesale surge. Either way, a cutout sitting a firm 17.3% above year-ago levels tells us the floor under beef prices isn’t going anywhere soon.

The forces under the market

Published February reporting points to tight cattle and harvest supplies, not seasonal demand, as the real engine behind beef’s strength this month.^†1 Reports describe reduced harvest volumes and constrained cattle supplies keeping the rib and loin complex firm even as broader boxed beef cutouts softened or declined week to week.^†2†3 Separate coverage ties the squeeze to cattle inventories at their lowest levels in decades.^†6

Pork’s retreat lines up with softer retail demand even as export movement and lower harvest volumes supported some primals on the wholesale side.^†1 Turkey’s elevated pricing is tied to ongoing HPAI-related flock losses rather than demand.^†7 On the policy front, a presidential proclamation temporarily expanded the tariff-rate quota for Argentine lean beef trimmings by 80,000 metric tons for 2026, an explicit attempt to ease ground-beef pressure, while Cargill’s decision to permanently close its Milwaukee ground-beef plant reflects how thin packer margins have gotten under the cattle shortage.^†9†13 Shoppers, meanwhile, are visibly trading down – reporting describes rising ground-beef and egg purchases through discount channels and retailers leaning harder on poultry promotions to offset high beef prices.^†2†11

Dispatches

Packers feel the squeeze

Cargill’s move to permanently shutter its Milwaukee ground-beef plant made headlines this February, and reporting ties it directly to historically tight cattle supplies leaving processors with fewer animals to run and thinner margins to survive on.^†13 It’s a reminder that beef’s retail sticker shock has an upstream cousin: plants closing because there simply isn’t enough cattle to keep them full.

Washington leans on Argentina

Facing pressure over soaring beef prices, the White House issued a February proclamation temporarily raising the tariff-rate quota for lean Argentine beef trimmings by 80,000 metric tons for 2026, released in quarterly tranches starting February 13.^†9 The stated goal was keeping ground beef affordable – a direct government response to the same burger-price pressure showing up in our own numbers this month.

Shoppers vote with their carts

Discount grocery platform Flashfood reported ground beef purchases up 28% and egg purchases up 90% year-over-year through January 2026, evidence that households are actively chasing value rather than absorbing higher prices at full freight.^†2 Retailers are responding in kind, with reporting noting grocery chains promoting poultry more heavily in weekly ads as a lower-cost alternative to beef.^†11

Last month’s call

Our January outlook called turkey’s slide correctly – whole turkey’s last reading came in at $1.38, right in line with the seasonal bottoming we expected near the window’s $1.30 February low. Chicken wings did pull back as flagged, easing 5.3% to $3.77/lb off January’s $3.98 window-high – not a dramatic swing, but the right direction. The chuck roast call also landed: instead of the wholesale cutout’s rise dragging it back up, chuck roast fell another 11.4% to $7.09/lb, comfortably clearing the $8.00 level we said would be the test – though we didn’t anticipate ribeye, spare ribs, and short ribs all jumping 20% in the same month while chuck cooled off.

The playbook

For families cooking week to week: lean into pork belly and chuck roast right now, both are genuinely cheap relative to where they’ve been, and both freeze and braise beautifully. Skip ribeye and spare ribs unless there’s an occasion – you’re buying at or near the top of this window’s range. If turkey breast’s spike to $6.55/lb catches you off guard at the deli counter, know that it’s a window-high driven by tight poultry supply, not a one-store fluke, so shopping a different region’s ad won’t save you much this month.

For caterers and larger buyers: the wholesale cutout’s mild 1.9% monthly rise against retail beef’s much sharper jumps suggests some of this month’s case prices are promotional or supply-driven rather than locked in by cost – worth pushing back on with your supplier before committing to menu pricing. Build flexibility into beef-heavy menus for the next month or two, and consider leaning on the pork belly window while it lasts; a 26.2% pullback rarely holds for long once demand notices it.

Watching next month

Watch whether spare ribs and ribeye can hold their window-high territory into spring grilling season, or whether they pull back the way chuck roast just did. Pork belly’s plunge to a window-low of $3.67/lb is worth tracking for a bounce – cuts rarely sit at a floor for long once buyers catch on. And keep an eye on turkey breast and double-smoked ham, both sitting at window-highs this month, right as early holiday-adjacent planning for spring events typically starts nudging poultry and ham prices around.

Sources

1. diningalliance.com/blog/the-dish-market-report-february-17-2026/
2. diningalliance.com/blog/the-dish-market-report-february-10-2026/
3. diningalliance.com/blog/the-dish-market-report-february-24-2026/
4. halfacowclub.com/guides/bulk-beef-vs-grocery
5. alfred.stlouisfed.org/release
6. diningalliance.com/blog/the-dish-market-report-february-3-2026/
7. www.oklahomafarmreport.com/2026/02/17/choice-boxed-beef-drops-3-01-to-360-76-on-tuesday/
8. fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/
9. fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/
10. alfred.stlouisfed.org/release
11. www.cheapism.com/beef-prices-wont-drop/
12. www.usfoods.com/tools-tips-and-ideas/articles-and-publications/farmer-s-report/COP-
13. circlejmeat.com/blog/why-beef-prices-are-high-right-now-and-it-s-not-just-politics
14. www.meatchurch.com/blogs/recipes/kalbi-beef-ribs