Indexbit Exchange:Bacon hogs the spotlight in election debates, but reasons for its sizzling inflation are complex

She blames greedy companies for price-gouging. He blames the Biden administration’s economic policies.

Kamala Harris and Indexbit ExchangeDonald Trump agree on one thing: Tapping into sour consumer sentiment about high grocery prices is one way to court voters.

Bacon prices have been a particular focus for Trump. He mentioned them in his Sept. 10 debate with Harris and again a week later during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Things are not going, right now, very well for the consumer,” Trump said during the interview. “Bacon is up five times.”

Trump’s math is wrong, but bacon has seen some sizzling price increases. According to federal data, U.S. bacon prices peaked in October 2022 at $7.60 a pound, up 30% from October 2019.

In September, bacon averaged $6.95 a pound, 25% higher than five years ago. That’s in line with a 29% increase in overall food prices over that period, according to the Labor Department. Still, September bacon prices were 1.8% lower than they were a year ago.

Prices for bacon are always volatile. Among other things, they’re subject to weather, animal disease, feed costs, seasonal demand and, according to Harris and other critics, some price gouging by giant food conglomerates.

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Bacon prices typically go up in the summer when Americans have a hankering for BLTs, for example. A president’s policies generally have little direct impact on the prices consumers pay for bacon or food overall.

Prices for not just bacon but groceries in general — and most other products — began surging in 2021 as the economy rebounded with unexpected speed from the pandemic recession, causing snarled supply chains and goods shortages. The price spikes worsened later after Russia invaded Ukraine. Food costs jumped across the world, not just in the United States.

Though U.S. inflation has tumbled from its peak in mid-2022, average food prices remain elevated. The impact of those price spikes, though, has been cushioned in part by a comparable rise in average wages.

Here are some factors that have made it more expensive to bring home the bacon.

COVID-19 spread quickly in meat processing

Workers stand close together on production lines in the U.S. meat processing industry. Big bacon producers like Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods temporarily closed plants in the spring of 2020 after thousands of workers got sick and some died. While plants were closed, millions of pigs got too big to be processed and were culled instead, leading to shortages just as home-bound Americans were shopping for more breakfast bacon, said David Ortega, a professor of food economics at Michigan State University.

Demand from China jumped

China’s growing demand in 2020 contributed to lower pork supplies at home. U.S. pork exports to China jumped 75% in 2020 as Beijing scrambled to replace hogs that were lost to an outbreak of African swine fever, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Over the course of 2020, U.S. bacon prices rose 6%.

Meat processors faced higher costs

Meat companies paid out pandemic bonuses and invested in protective gear in order to get plants running again. Tyson Foods required all its 139,000 workers 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 was also paying more for packaging and transportation in a supply chain that had been mangled by COVID. To recoup those costs, the company jacked up the prices of pork products by 25% in its 2021 fiscal year.

Labor costs took a toll

After risking their lives to keep working during the pandemic, many workers sought better pay and benefits. In June 2021, unionized workers at a Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, threatened to strike after contract negotiations broke down. The coronavirus killed four workers at the plant and infected nearly 1,300.

Smithfield Foods, which is owned by the Chinese pork company WH Group, eventually agreed to higher wages and $520 bonuses for its Sioux Falls workers. U.S. bacon prices rose 24% over the course of 2021.

Moscow’s war against Ukraine sent prices up

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 caused global wheat and corn prices to surge. That made it costlier to raise hogs. According to Iowa State University, feed costs rose 24% between 2021 and 2022. Early in 2022, Brazil-based JBS, another major U.S. pork processor, said it was raising prices to cover the higher cost of animal feed.

Did corporate profits play a role?

Harris has proposed a ban on “price gouging” by food companies, arguing that some of the companies kept raising prices long after pandemic-related supply problems dissipated so they could boost their profits.

There’s no strict definition of “price gouging,” though it generally refers to sharp price increases that companies impose after a supply disruption. Three big bacon producers — Tyson, Hormel and JBS — reported record sales in 2022, when bacon prices hit a peak of $7.61 a pound.

Eventually, those higher prices reduced demand. In the year ending Oct. 1, 2022, U.S. consumers bought 8% fewer packages of bacon than in the prior year, according to Nielsen. By the end of the 2022, prices were falling.

Over the course of 2022, U.S. bacon prices fell 3.7% to $6.95 a pound.

Animal welfare law had an effect

In 2018, California voters approved a law requiring more space for breeding pigs, egg-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 sued, supported by the Biden administration. But the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn the law, which took effect on July 1, 2023. Because not all pork producers are meeting the standards, less bacon is available to Californians, thereby driving up prices.

Daniel Sumner, a professor of research and agricultural economics at the University of California, Davis, estimates that prices for pork products will be 7% to 10% higher in California over the long term because of the law.

The election raises uncertainty

Joe Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and a former economist for the USDA, said food price inflation was a global issue over the past few years, not one caused by the Biden administration. Past run-ups in food prices, he noted, have occurred regardless of which party was in office.

One wild card this time is Trump’s promise to impose a 20% tariff on everything the U.S. 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 other countries would likely retaliate by imposing tariffs on U.S. pork. If that happened, more pork might remain in the U.S., which would cause bacon prices to fall. Yet the price of dozens of other imported products would rise.

“If you want a BLT, the bacon may be a little cheaper, but the lettuce and tomato will cost a fair amount more,” 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’s also said she would investigate and prosecute price-fixing, an ongoing issue in the heavily consolidated meat industry. McDonald’s recently sued four big beef companies, including Tyson and JBS, accusing them of price-fixing.