Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation 40 million pounds of bacon!

Don't know what to make of this, maybe why those loins were so cheap.

America's Pile of Uneaten Bacon Is the Biggest in 48 Years

America is sitting on a mountain of uneaten bacon. From a report:

More than 40 million pounds (18,000 metric tons) of pork bellies, the cut used for bacon making, were sitting in refrigerated warehouses as of Sept. 30, according to U.S. government data released Tuesday. That's the most for the month since 1971. The overhang came after a build up in the American hog herd. Pork output surged over the summer months and through September, said Dennis Smith, senior account executive at Archer Financial Services. Bellies have seen a magnified inventory increase because demand is mostly domestic, unlike cuts such as ham, for which overseas buying can help reduce reserves. Hog producers started building up their herds in anticipation of more demand for meat imports from China, where African swine fever has killed millions of pigs. The U.S. herd swelled to 77.7 million head. as of Sept. 1, a record for the month and the highest since 1943 considering all periods, the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture data show. slashdot

Dammit you people need to get to work. I'm doing my part! (just saw this on /. myself)

I have yet to see any price decline.

Didn't see that/

Send it over to Syria or Iran, I'm sure they'll love it.

Same here. Bacon is very expensive at Albertsons, Fred Meyers, and Winco.

L.W.

So, why is it so expensive? What about the (insert genuflection here) law of supply and demand?

My local Krogers just put pork loins on for .99 a pound. I will pick up some for the freezer for sure. Have one loin in a brine now for some Canadian bacon but also like to cut them into chops.

Sig...I bought a bunch of those loins. In process of cutting, chopping etc and canning it up. It’s simple, extremely tasty w looong shelf life. Should we experience one of those PG&E type long term outages! Won’t have to depend on freezer.

Please throw out your recipes and techniques! The last time I canned anything, I was too little to remember much at my grandmothers.....although with a whole house genset I worry less about my freezers, I still worry some!

LOL. Too far into it for that. Seriously we’ve done so for quite a long time and really creates a great product.

That really doesn't strike me as all that much pork belly to be stock piled. I have 60 lbs in the freezer here and I just put another 5 lbs into a brine mix to make into bacon in about ten days. 40 million lbs is only my supply for maybe 700,000 people. That's not even a BIG city.

Probably most of that stock piled belly is not decent bacon quality anyway. Like as not it isn't skinned. Like as not it isn't thick enough to make bacon out of. Good quality belly to make bacon out of is not as easy to come by as most pork products and it commands a premium price. Case lots of the best quality bacon bellies go for $3.50 per pound if you're lucky.

At this time of year when I am putting up venison which requires pork fat for burger and sausage I usually have about a like amount of pork shoulder. I could as well have 50-60 lbs of low quality belly on hand were it available for the price of shoulder. I have not seen belly sold at shoulder prices for a very long time.

Note to 5sdad... It's expensive because it's good! That is strange because bacon is one of those things that anyone can make much better than the stuff you can buy and it is pure simplicity to do. PS Sausage is as easy and just as much better.

Miles, I agree that it's good, but that supposedly should have nothing to do with the price according to the holy of holys (sp?), supply and demand.

Lower the price and I will stock up. I love bacon.

Supply and demand has nothing to do with the prices of things. Look at the price of p*ssy. Plenty enough to go around and it varies from free to hundreds of thousands of dollars for what it essentially the same commodity.

Make it yourself. Bacon can be made cheaply and way better than what you buy in the store.

Miles - I believe that we are in agreement.

Its never free.

Only a Democrat could come up with something like that!