She blames greedy companies for price gouging. He blames the Biden administration’s economic policies.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump agree on one thing: Tapping into sour consumer sentiment about high grocery prices is a way to court voters.
Bacon prices were a particular focus for Trump. He mentioned them in his September 10 debate with Harris and again a week later during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Things are not going well for the consumer right now,” Trump said during the interview. “Bacon is five times higher.”
Trump’s calculations are wrong, but bacon has seen some blistering price increases. U.S. bacon prices peaked at $7.60 per pound in October 2022, a 30% increase from October 2019, according to federal data.
In September, bacon averaged $6.95 per pound, up 25% from five years ago. That equates to a 29% increase in overall food prices over that period, the Labor Ministry said. Nevertheless, bacon prices in September were 1.8% lower than a year ago.
Bacon prices are always volatile. They are subject to, among other things, weather, animal diseases, feed costs, seasonal demand and, according to Harris and other critics, some price gouging by giant food conglomerates.
Bacon prices typically rise in the summer, when Americans crave BLTs, for example. A president’s policies generally have little direct impact on the prices consumers pay for bacon or food in general.
Prices for not just bacon but groceries in general — and most other products — began rising in 2021 as the economy recovered from the pandemic recession with unexpected speed, collapsing supply chains and causing shortages of goods. The price spikes later worsened after Russia invaded Ukraine. Food costs have skyrocketed around the world, not just in the United States.
Although US inflation has fallen From the peak in mid-2022, average food prices will remain high. However, the impact of these price spikes has been partially offset by a comparable increase in average wages.
Here are some factors that have made it more expensive to bring home the bacon.
Workers stand close together on production lines in the American meat processing industry. Major bacon producers such as Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods temporarily closed factories in the spring of 2020 after thousands of workers fell ill and some died. As factories closed, millions of pigs grew too large to be processed and were culled, leading to shortages just as homebound Americans were buying more bacon, said David Ortega, a professor of food economics at Michigan State University.
Growing Chinese demand in 2020 contributed to lower pork supply domestically. U.S. pork exports to China rose 75% in 2020 as Beijing scrambled to replace pigs lost to a outbreak of African swine feveraccording to the US Department of Agriculture.
Over the course of 2020, US bacon prices rose 6%.
Meat companies paid out pandemic bonuses and invested in protective equipment to get plants running again. Tyson Food all necessary its 139,000 employees to receive COVID vaccines.
By the end of 2021, Tyson said it had spent more than $800 million on bonuses, vaccine clinics and other COVID-related measures. It also paid more for packaging and transportation in a supply chain crippled by COVID. To recoup these costs, the company increased the prices of pork products by 25% in fiscal 2021.
After risking their lives to keep working during the pandemic, many workers sought better wages and benefits. In June 2021, union workers at a Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota threatened to strike after contract negotiations failed. The coronavirus killed four workers at the plant and infected nearly 1,300.
Smithfield Foods, owned by Chinese pork company WH Group, finally agreed to higher wages and bonuses of $520 for Sioux Falls workers. US bacon prices rose 24% over the course of 2021.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 caused global wheat and corn prices to rise. That made it more expensive to breed pigs. According to Iowa State University, feed costs increased 24% between 2021 and 2022. In early 2022, Brazil-based JBS, another major U.S. pork processor, said it was raising prices to cover higher animal feed costs.
Harris has proposed one ban on “price gouging” by food companies, arguing that some companies continued to raise prices long after pandemic-related supply issues subsided so they could boost profits.
There is no strict definition of “price gouging,” although it generally refers to sharp price increases that companies impose after a supply disruption. Three major bacon producers – Tyson, Hormel and JBS – reported record sales in 2022, when bacon prices peaked at $7.61 per pound.
Ultimately, those higher prices reduced demand. According to Nielsen, U.S. consumers bought 8% fewer packs of bacon in the year ending October 1, 2022 than in the previous year. By the end of 2022, prices fell.
Over the course of 2022, U.S. bacon prices fell 3.7% to $6.95 per pound.
California voters in 2018 a law passed More space is needed for breeding pigs, laying hens and veal calves. Producers in other states must meet those standards if they want to sell pork, eggs or veal in California. The pork industry has filed a lawsuit, backed by the Biden administration. But the The U.S. Supreme Court refused to overturn the law, which came into effect on July 1, 2023. Because not all pork producers meet the standards, there is less bacon available to Californians, causing prices to rise.
Daniel Sumner, a professor of research and agricultural economics at the University of California, Davis, estimates that prices for pork products in California will be 7% to 10% higher in the long run because of the law.
Joe Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and a former economist for the USDA, said food price inflation in recent years was a global problem, not one caused by the Biden administration. In the past, food price increases have occurred, he noted, regardless of which party was in power.
One wildcard this time is Trump’s promise impose a 20% tariff on everything the US imports. Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University, noted that the U.S. generally exports between 20% and 25% of its pork, and that other countries are likely to retaliate by imposing tariffs on U.S. pork. If that were to happen, it could leave more pork in the U.S., causing bacon prices to drop. Still, the price of dozens of other imported products would rise.
“If you want a BLT, the bacon might be a little cheaper, but the lettuce and tomato will be quite a bit more expensive,” Hart said.
Harris has denounced Trump’s proposed sweeping tariffs, though she has supported targeted tariffs on Chinese imports.
Harris has vowed to crack down on unfair mergers that give big food companies too much pricing power. She has also said she would investigate and prosecute price fixing, an ongoing problem in the heavily consolidated meat industry. McDonald’s recently indicted four major beef companies, including Tyson and JBS, accuse them of price fixing.