Your Bacon Obsession Is Boosting Prices

Demand for bacon in or on everything from doughnuts and funnel cakes to Tater Tots and shrimp tempura is driving up the price.
Your Bacon Obsession Is Boosting Prices

Bacon slice being cooked in frying pan

The rage for bacon in or on everything — from doughnuts and funnel cakes to peanut brittle, ice cream bars and marmalade to Tater Tots and shrimp tempura — is not without consequences.

Because demand is up and supply is down, wholesale prices for pork bellies, the cut of meat from which bacon slices are made, are surging: They’re up 174 percent over the five-year low they hit in April, reaching a one-year high of almost $1.70 per pound last week, Bloomberg reports, citing information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And we have only ourselves to blame. “It’s really demand that’s driving this,” Kansas City, Mo.-based risk management consultant Ryan Turner, of FCStone Group, told Bloomberg. “People are putting bacon on anything.”

The good news is that consumer bacon prices, though rising, are still lower than they were in 2014, when a virus caused the untimely demise of more than 8 million piglets, spiking retail prices before supply could catch up with demand, Time notes. (The pork market is highly cyclical, according to Bloomberg.)

Speaking of demand, here’s a list of 50 things made better with bacon — a great way to add sizzle to your kitchen repertoire. Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip-Bacon Cookies, anyone?

Photo courtesy of iStock

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