Chowhound is a weekly column about what’s trending in Detroit food culture. Tips: [email protected].
Reminds me of Animal Farm: As a consequence of a newly passed California law, pork prices are expected to rise in coming months, perhaps exponentially. In a nutshell, the statute now requires the state’s pig farmers to adopt a more humane approach to animal husbandry by providing their livestock more room to roam. For everyone concerned, the math seems simple. While the size of farms and their associated operating costs remain essentially the same, less product will go to market from each and every operation. Unless producers are content to let diminished herd sizes deplete revenues, expect future pork prices intended to make up that difference being passed immediately onto wholesalers then, ultimately, to retail food sellers. Grit your canine teeth. Staples such as ribs, bacon, and pork chops might cost a much prettier penny real soon.
Why, you may ask, would this Golden State change trigger such an effect cross-country? Commodities market analysts say the recent West Coast mandates are almost certain to sweep eastward as other states’ lobbies encouraged by California’s ruling bring similar initiatives to votes across the U.S. They point to current pork belly futures (the standard price indicator) already trading at a high $2.15-plus per pound as a strong predictor of looming cost hikes for the category.
This is more bad news for restaurants. Pork’s a last bastion of meat purchasing affordability for many. Consider how many non-barbecue venues we see offering pulled pork these days. That’s because butts and shoulders have remained relatively inexpensive. If this changes, will consumers find that sandwich as easy a swallow at $18 or so? Look how pork chops have proliferated as well, replacing much pricier beefsteaks in many dining rooms. There are still good margins to be made on clientele willing to pay 50% less for a pig porterhouse than its cow counterpart. But if neighborhood grills and taverns find themselves forced to charge steakhouse prices for pork chops going forward, it might make no sense to offer such premium items in mom-and-pop business models that don’t typically cater to money’s-no-object crowds. Menu shrinkage is a thing these days. Perhaps you’ve noticed. And what about ham, bacon, or sausage with your eggs? Don’t be surprised if the near future finds another surcharge tacked onto your bill; this time for your breakfast meat of choice, added to those automatic service charges and additional tip lines we’re finding at the end of more and more meals while eating out.
Pork’s a last bastion of meat purchasing affordability for many.
Look, I’m not trying to incite a hangry mob here, and I’m certainly no foe of folks who raise, process, bring to market, prepare, and serve us the food we hope to find available to us at a certain value. Still, I am starting to chirp along with the growing throng of those going Chicken Little on a food chain that seems to have developed some serious chinks running concurrent with the other economic anchors being hung around the necks of working-class access, opportunity, and viability. Sorry, but I can’t buy that COVID-19 infected every single corner of commerce with epidemic inflation. I am, however, seriously starting to suspect that it did spread uncontrolled and unconscionable profiteering that a world population — panicked into pandemic pandemonium — turned a blind eye to.
Pathetically at best, despicably at worst, many who saw the viral, global disruption as a real money-maker started stuffing their pockets and passing it off as doing their share of the sandbag-filling for the fight. If the war on COVID’s real, let’s remember that sessions of Congress since the Lincoln administration have enforced wartime profiteering prosecutions seeking severe penalties for perpetrators. I think elected representatives of the American people would serve us well by taking a look at not only how and where the wave of pandemic inflation got rolling across this country, but what financial windfalls were realized in business sectors far and above those that could credibly be counted as fair gains in the crisis economy of the past few years. Sure, that’ll happen. Consider the collective wealth and influence of the likely worst offenders. You can’t fight Tammany, er, city hall, they say. If Boss Hog’s determined to pad porky profits now, for one reason or another, he’ll find a way to justify it in the headlines. Lo and behold, here it is. Pigs need more elbow room. I’m sure that’s so, so there you go.
When a single, skinny pipeline in the desert outside Tucson ruptures and the price of a gallon of gas from Spokane, Washington to Bangor, Maine goes up (true story), it makes me wonder. About a year after our serious, new flu virus caused global shockwaves, I doubted it would bring the world to its knees on its own. I was working in an institutional setting at the time, managing meal services in an Arizona rehab hospital. Co-workers and patients all around me were catching COVID then getting better. I eventually did, too, more than a year after consenting to receive a vaccine. I can’t dismiss or diminish what so many suffered. I was sicker than a dog. My daughter-in-law lost a grandfather who couldn’t recover. Even so, three years later, I’m left with a lingering case of cynicism over what went on while we the people listened to the powers that be talking desperate times, desperate measures, and trust in government. While waving masks in our faces with one hand, was the business arm of alarmist leadership picking our pockets? Are they still? They’ve yet to call off the alarm. Now, they’re talking another new variant. Here we go again?
Lord knows, animals we eat deserve better than to be penned up while waiting to meet their fates. Yet pigs in California don’t hire lawyers to represent them. Powerfully influential people who see profit in pleading their cases do. Given all the better sense we’ve surrendered to the pirates of the pandemic already, is it any wonder we’re still being plundered through good-for-humanity sales pitches?
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This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2023.
