Posted on 08/05/2014 8:21:13 PM PDT by dennisw
Bacon lovers are getting socked in the piggy bank.
City butchers and restaurateurs are beginning to squeal for mercy after the price of bacon rose to the highest it’s been in nearly 30 years — thanks to high demand and a shortage of healthy pigs.
“We’ve had to raise the prices in small increments in the last month,” said Vincent Santiago, an employee at Staubitz meat market in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
The pork surge began last year when a virus swept through US farms in about 30 states and killed millions of pigs.
Bacon prices have shot up around 10 percent this year alone and reached an all-time high of $6.11 per pound, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Santiago said a half-pound slab of bacon now costs about $3.99, as opposed to last month when they were about a dollar cheaper.
“We don’t like to raise prices, but this is what we do for a living,” he added. “People are still buying it.”
Thomas Perone, owner of Pig Guy NYC, said he’s not happy about the skyrocketing price of pig products, but is absorbing the costs of the increase for now.
“The price of pork is through the roof right now,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Freepers favorite healthy vegetable is bacon not broccoli
Noooo!
In a few years pork products will be forbidden in the US anyway (don’t won’t to offend the Muslims), so no reason to panic. /s
My wife has been training our dogs, both Bacon Retrievers. They will go down the slide on the swing set, for bacon.
My grand-daughter has the swing-set of her grandmother’s dreams, in my back yard.
This pig shortage is going to cost me.
You mean to tell me I shoulda been buying pork belly futures instead of GM stock?
I’ve got more wild hogs on my ranch than what NYC eats.
I can’t shoot them fast enough to cull the population.
Bacon?!
I’ve got an unlimited supply.
It really is the end of the world.
The future must not belong to those who slander bacon!
Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, then i see Tia headline.
What about the sliced pork belly I see at my Asian grocery. They get them from local Amish and from Canada. They’re not cured, but how do the fry up and taste? They’re no where near as expensive as cured bacon, and are probably a lot healthier. But do they taste good?
Tell ‘em to come to Texas. Plenty of feral hogs to shoot for free and get all the bacon they want.
Breitbart article I found:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/01/11/Pig-Killing-Virus-Spreads-from-China-to-U-S
A deadly pig-killing virus called porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, or PED, that has spread to farms in 22 states may have come from China, where an almost identical virus rampaged through the Chinese hog market in 2012.
The virus arrived in the U.S. in April and thousands of piglets have died.
Last September, the world’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods, whose brands include Armour and Farmland with annual sales of $13 billion, was sold to Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd., the largest shareholder of China’s biggest meat processor. The $7.1 billion deal was the largest takeover of a U.S. company by a Chinese firm.
As the virus has slaughtered pigs in the U.S., prices in the $9 billion hog-futures market have zoomed up. Lean-hog futures are the highest they have been in almost two months. Smithfield Foods Inc. and other pork producers estimate that roughly 10% of U.S. sows have been infected. Smithfield added that there could be a loss to U.S. pig production of 3% of the industry’s total.
Mike Brandherm, a general manager with Hitch Pork Producers, a Guymon, Oklahoma, livestock producer that lost 30,000 piglets in six weeks, said, “This is the toughest disease we’ve ever gone through. It was stunning how fast the disease spread. You feel helpless.”
I have 10 one lb packages I bought on sale in my chest freezer in the garage.
We reorganized it today. It is jam packed and not one piece of meat was purchased at regular price. The freezer has paid for itself several times over since I bought it in 2003 for $169 at Sears. Darn thing costs $100 more now thanks to the money printers in DC.
It’s true. I have a friend that is the head sales guy for a pork processing company and they can’t keep up with demand. They’ve lost a lot and lot of pigs with this disease.
‘Wright Brand Bacon’ in our area of middle TN jumped from $8.99 for 24 oz to $11.49 in a week.
I guess those $3.00 bacon maple bars at Voodoo Donuts (Portland, OR) is going to jack up the cost even higher!
http://voodoodoughnut.com/index.php
That right there is proof bacon is it’s own food group.
Do you just smoke and cure the belly or are there other cuts pleasing to eat? Compared to standard pork?
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