Tyson Foods Inc. widely missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit Monday, as falling beef prices and weak demand for pork triggered a sharp decline in margins, sending the U.S. meatpacker's shares down more than 5% premarket.

While soaring meat prices boosted revenue of Tyson last year, the company reported an 8.5% drop in average sales price of beef in the first quarter.

Prices of pork were up 1.4%, while those of chicken rose 7.1% in the reported quarter. In comparison, pork and chicken prices surged 13% and 20%, respectively, a year earlier.

"We faced some challenges in the first quarter. Market dynamics and some operational inefficiencies impacted our profitability," said Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King.

Wall Street analysts have also said chicken prices are now trending down, with brokerage Piper Sandler noting prices of boneless, skinless chicken breast were down by about 45% in the quarter.

The Jimmy Dean sausages maker said operating margin in the beef segment, its largest, shrank to 3.5% from 19.1% a year earlier.

The fall in beef prices dragged Tyson's sales at a time demand is already taking a hit from penny-pinched Americans reducing their spending on pricier meat cuts. Volumes at Tyson's pork business declined 7.4%.

Sales at Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson rose 2.5% to $13.26 billion in the three months ended Dec. 31, missing analysts' average estimate of $13.52 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The company's adjusted earnings were 85 cents per share, much lower than expectations of $1.34 per share.