Bacon Demand Less Cyclical

Reports of a bacon shortage have been greatly exaggerated.

But demand for pork bellies, the key component of bacon, no longer is seasonal and USDA Livestock Analyst Shayle Shagam said that is why storage numbers were a little on the lower side.

“The storage is there as a cushion and it’s there for periods of large slaughter because there is a seasonality to hog slaughter. We kill more hogs in the winter than we tend to do say in the spring.”

Bacon used to see its highest demand in the summer, but that has transformed to being all year for all meals and so there is more dipping into the frozen stocks until the fresh pork bellies come in.

Shagam said that prices might be a little higher now, but that should be temporary.

“We would expect to see, as increased pork production comes online, as increased supplies of pork bellies are available, the prices will be declining over time.”