Popularity of Bacon Drives Continued Domestic Pork Demand

Oct 28, 2015

The director of risk management with h@ms Marketing Services is crediting the continued strong performance of pork in the domestic market to the growing popularity among consumers of bacon.

Over the last 5 months the wholesale price of chicken in the U.S. dropped by about 30 percent while the wholesale price of beef has fallen by about 20 percent but wholesale pork prices have remained relatively stable.

Tyler Fulton, director of risk management with h@ms Marketing Services, says pork has very effectively grown its domestic market.

Tyler Fulton-h@ms Marketing Services:
One of the major factors that's contributed to pork's success over the last six months or so is hw effective bacon has been marketed and has been received by North America's consumers.

In fact bacon prices, or the wholesale product that bacon is derived from, which would be pork bellies, nearly tripled their value since May of this year.

It's really a phenomenal increase over a relatively short period of time and is one of the factors that has kept that wholesale price for all pork relatively stable while the other competing meats have declined.
To date pork has been very effective at growing their domestic market.

I'm not sure I would bet against it right now, even as some of those competing meats are really coming on strong.

I would say, in general, I'm pretty optimistic about the demand scenario and its impact on hog producer profitability in western Canada.

Fulton says, while growth of domestic consumption of pork has been positive, export demand for North American pork, whether it be from the U.S. or Canada, has been a lot flatter.

He observes exchange rates have not favored North American Pork on the export market.

Source: Farmscape

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