--- title: Your Insatiable Love of Bacon Is Causing Prices to Soar description: Rising demand for bacon has caused a surge in wholesale prices for pork bellies, the cut of meat used to make bacon. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Business - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-08-11T16:29:37.000Z' modified: '2024-05-16T10:24:32.000Z' section: Business tags: - Bacon - Food & Drink - groceries - meat - pork - pubdesk word_count: 196 canonical: https://money.com/bacon-prices-pork-bellies/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Bacon on plate with scrambled eggs and hash browns, with coffee and fruit salad and orange juice](https://img.money.com/2015/08/150811_em_loveofbacon.jpg?crop=0px%2C243px%2C1296px%2C729px&quality=85) Since April, the wholesale price of pork bellies—the cut of meat used to make bacon—has spiked 174%, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited by [Bloomberg](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-10/bring-me-my-bacon-fries-pork-belly-prices-sizzle). What's to blame for the surge in pricing? The question should instead be posed as *who* is to blame. And the answer is … you. All of us, really. All of the consumers who crave bacon not only as scrambled egg companions on breakfast platters, but also in [milkshakes](http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/11/15/the-complete-history-of-how-bacon-took-over-the-world/), [inside donuts](https://time.com/3740823/bacon-topped-hot-dog-krispy-kreme-donut-bun/), and collectively share the responsibility for rising prices. “It’s really demand that’s driving this,” Ryan Turner, a risk management consultant at FCStone Group, said to Bloomberg. “People are putting bacon on anything.” Even so, it's [not time to panic](http://business.time.com/2013/11/19/turkey-drought-bacon-crisis-dont-believe-the-hype/). Pork belly prices have soared from what was a five-year low in April. And prices at the retail level have not exploded, at least not hand in hand with their wholesale equivalents. Supermarket bacon prices started getting cheaper in late 2014 and kept retreating through the early part of the year. Consumer prices today remain lower than last summer, when a pig virus decimated the hog population, causing retail prices to surge nearly 20% year over year. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/bacon-prices-pork-bellies/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Retail", "item": "https://money.com/retail/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Your Insatiable Love of Bacon Is Causing Prices to Soar" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/bacon-prices-pork-bellies/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/bacon-prices-pork-bellies/", "name": "Your Insatiable Love of Bacon Is Causing Prices to Soar", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2015-08-11T16:29:37.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/bacon-prices-pork-bellies/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/bacon-prices-pork-bellies/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-05-16T10:24:32.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Your Insatiable Love of Bacon Is Causing Prices to Soar", "articleSection": "Business", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2015/08/150811_em_loveofbacon.jpg?crop=0px%2C243px%2C1296px%2C729px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "150811_EM_LoveofBacon" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2015-08-11T16:29:37.000Z", "description": "Rising demand for bacon has caused a surge in wholesale prices for pork bellies, the cut of meat used to make bacon.", "abstract": "Rising demand for bacon has caused a surge in wholesale prices for pork bellies, the cut of meat used to make bacon.", "@id": "https://money.com/bacon-prices-pork-bellies/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-05-16T10:24:32.000Z", "wordCount": 196, "keywords": [ "Bacon", "Food & Drink", "groceries", "meat", "pork", "pubdesk" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Business", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Retail", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retail" ] } ] } ] } ```