Advertisement

Living High on the Hog: Hog prices...

From Times Wire Services

Living High on the Hog: Hog prices are the lowest they’ve been in 20 years, but you wouldn’t know it from supermarkets in most parts of the country. Although scattered meat companies and supermarket chains are beginning to trim retail pork prices, many are not yet passing along the 33% drop in the price of hogs since August. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average retail price of pork had dropped only about 1% to $1.97 a pound by October, the latest data available. One rule of thumb is that consumers should reap roughly a third of any drop in hog prices. In this case, that would be about 22 cents a pound. High prices are swelling the profit margins of meatpackers and retailers and upsetting farm groups and farm state legislators, who had hoped that lower retail prices would encourage Americans to eat more pork.

Advertisement