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Time to prepare for yet another shortage. According to new reports, pork products could be hard to come by this summer. While some products are already experiencing shortages, these may be made worse as restaurants reopen and people start having more social gatherings. Some experts are predicting that outdoor events, like BBQs and cookouts, will be extremely popular this summer. Some experts are predicting that outdoor events, like BBQs and cookouts, will be extremely popular this summer. (iStock) Some experts are predicting that outdoor events, like BBQs and cookouts, will be extremely popular this summer, Business Insider reports. This is...

Bad news bacon lovers. Virginia-based Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s biggest pork producer, is warning that an outbreak of African swine fever wiping out hog farms in China could result in a stateside shortage of pig belly and even ham next year. Though the crisis hasn’t impacted the U.S. market yet, that that could change as China is forced to increase imports to satisfy demand in 2020, Bloomberg reports. The Chinese “are insatiable in their appetite for pork,” Arnold Silver, director of raw materials procurement at Smithfield, said at the Urner Barry Global Protein Summit in Chicago earlier this week....

For a moment there, hogs everywhere might have been snorting a sigh of relief. Earlier this week there was the prediction that a global pork shortage would drive up the prices of bacon, chops and other pork byproducts at your local grocery store. The three little pigs no doubt saw this as a sign that pork lovers would huff, puff and blow houses down elsewhere to satisfy their craving for the meat. Britain’s National Pig Association issued the earlier warning, predicting a “world shortage” of pork due to drought. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, however, said the fears across the...

A British pork industry group is predicting serious shortages next year that are now "unavoidable."Fox News: A world shortage of pork and bacon next year is "now unavoidable," a British industry group said in a press release. Britain's National Pig Association (NPA) says that pig herds in Europe are shrinking. As if that isn't bad enough, this trend is "being mirrored around the world," the group says in the release. Drought conditions, especially in the U.S. and Russia, have taken a toll on the price of the grain crops used for animal feed, and world food prices are expected...

(CBS News) BLTs next year might have to forego the B, according to a British trade group. Britain's National Pig Association, "the voice of the British pig industry," warned recently that a global shortage of bacon and pork "is now unavoidable" because of shrinking herds. The trade group reported Thursday that annual pig production for Europe's main pig producers fell across the board between 2011 and 2012, a trend that "is being mirrored around the world." The group tied the decline to increased feed costs, an effect of poor harvests for corn and soybeans. Even though the pig association issued...

Might want to get your fill of ham this year, because "a world shortage of pork and bacon next year is now unavoidable," according to an industry trade group. Blame the drought conditions that blazed through the corn and soybean crop this year. Less feed led to herds declining across the European Union “at a significant rate,” according to the National Pig Assn. in Britain. And the trend “is being mirrored around the world,” according to a release (hat tip to the Financial Times). In the second half of next year, the number of slaughtered pigs could fall 10%, doubling...

GLOBAL - The world’s pig farmers are warning of a shortage of bacon and pork next year because pig-feed has become unaffordable following disastrous growing and harvesting weather. Governments are becoming increasingly concerned. Around the world, pig farmers are selling their herds because they can no longer afford to feed their pigs. In the United States the government has introduced a pork-buying programme in a bid to keep its pig farmers in business. And the Chinese government is putting pork into cold storage, as a buffer against shortages and high prices next year. Pig industry leaders from across the European...