Americans are eating bacon almost as fast as farmers and slaughterhouses can produce it, the USDA revealed in new data that shows a 50-year low in the nation’s pork belly reserves.
Supplies in December dipped to a trim 17.8 million pounds — 35 million pounds less than December 2015’s stockpile and the lowest since 1957.
The news led to tales of a “bacon shortage,” but the scare is hogwash any way you slice it, according to pork-belly producers who say pigs will fly before the U.S. runs out of rashers.
“Media reports have inaccurately implied that our organization was suggesting that there is actually a shortage of bacon. Those media accounts ignored the statement from our President that there is not a shortage of bacon,” according to a statement from the Ohio Pork Council.
“Bacon may become more expensive for consumers, rest assured, [the] pork industry will not run out of supply,” council president Rich Deaton told USA Today.
The trim reserve — more a count of the stock on hand at 800 mostly private warehouses than a backup to the food supply — comes despite historically high production of pork belly, from which we get our slices and slabs of the fatty breakfast staple that now finds itself in everything from burgers to candy and ice cream.
“Thinking of them as reserves may not be the best. These are facilities that are holding product to be distributed. Were not sitting on it, we’re not maintaining set number of storage for a commodity,” said Alissa Cowell-Myta, a cold-storage expert for the USDA.
The figures only account for food held in frozen storage for more than 30 days — usually by producers and distributors who use the porcine stockpile as a cushion against price fluctuations, she said.
Still, pork belly prices shot up by 20 percent in January, the pig council said. And some swine fanatics are already feeling the burn.
“I’m a huge bacon fan. I’ve seen prices go up enough for me to to notice,” said Mel Mac, 37, who was buying bacon at Chelsea Markets on Wednesday. “ I mean I’m concerned now. I put bacon on everything — bacon-wrapped dates, bacon syrup Martinis, bacon omelettes. If it goes up way too much, I won’t eat as often.”
The food’s popularity has sizzled in the last decade, but pig farmers may have President Trump to thank for a recent rise in consumption, according to a food historian.
“Bacon has become very trendy. It’s de rigueur to put bacon on anything comforting,” said “historic gastronomist” Sarah Lohman.“It seems like in this political climate, people are saying f–k it and looking for comfort in whatever — stress-eating.