Breakfast lovers who pig out on bacon are finding it’s becoming an expensive proposition, and one onerous state law may be driving prices sky-high.
Currently, wholesale pork belly prices (the main driver of bacon costs) stand at approximately $2.15 per pound. That’s their highest level in the last 12 months.
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Rising pork prices aren’t having a major impact at the grocery store yet, but restaurants that historically operate on thin profit margins may downplay bacon promotions due to soaring wholesale bacon prices.
“They’re probably thinking twice about featuring a new bacon cheeseburger, bacon chicken sandwich or Baconator, or whatever,” said Brian Earnest, a lead agricultural economist at CoBank, in comments to The Wall Street Journal.
Grocery stores aren’t dealing with overly high prices yet, as they typically can shift costs around due to the fact they carry thousands of products.
That scenario could change after the passage of California’s Proposition 12, an anti-animal cruelty law that mandates more space for contained breeding pigs. More spacing for pigs and hogs means fewer breeding opportunities and thus higher prices for pork products.
On May 12, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court backed the California law, with Justice Neil Gorsuch writing in support of the decision. “While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list,” Gorsuch noted in supporting Proposition 12.
Pork lobbyists took a different view.
“We’re very disappointed” with the Supreme Court ruling,” said Scott Hayes, president of the National Pork Producers Council. “Allowing state overreach will increase prices for consumers and drive small farms out of business, leading to more consolidation,” he wrote.
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Pork producers say the technical aspects of new California law, especially pertaining to the storage, breeding, and penning of pigs, will likely have an effect on pork production nationwide. Proposition 12 compliance could cost the pork industry up to $350 million which would further drive the price of pork-related products upward.
Per-pound retail bacon prices stood at $5.26 in 2020 and rose to $7.61 in 2022, before sliding back to $6.61 in mid-2023. Yet pork analysts see prices rising further on seasonality factors and likely more now on the ripple effects of Proposition 12.
That leaves bacon lovers in a precarious spot.
With bacon prices pressured by inflation already, and now vulnerable to an otherwise humane California state law, bacon aficionados may be out of the frying pan and into the fire.
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