NCBA Convention: New Company Launches Beef Benchmarking, Forward Contracting
US - A new US-Canadian company that provides benchmarking information and writes forward contracts on beef cuts officially launched itself and two new products at the 2009 Cattle Industry Annual Convention & NCBA Trade Show, writes Roy Leidahl for TheCattleSite.
29 January 2009
1 minute read
Future Beef Partners Ltd., formed in 2005, said its new BeefScout system uses USDA market data on beef cuts and trimmings to create a monthly relationship between those prices and nearby live cattle futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The system uses that relationship to generate a price for a specific delivery period, based on the value of the live cattle futures contract. The result is a benchmark to help users evaluate their forward price contracts. The company offers the service for a fee of $2,200 monthly or $8,000 annually.
Using the forward price information from that system, the company's new BasisGuard service guarantees forward prices for its customers with a forward contract. When the contract expires, Future Beef Partners cash settles the difference between the USDA reported price and the guaranteed cash price.
Future Beef Partners promotes its services for ranchers, suppliers, processors, distributors and retailers of beef. The company was formed in 2005 in Ontario by John Ferraro, founder and CEO of Retail Ready Foods Inc. Last November, the company announced Chris Miller as president and chief economist. Miller, based in Chicago, has more than 20 years of meat industry experience, most recently as principal meat economist at Sara Lee Corp.
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