Yesterday I read an article about the success of beef's push for quality and how it took decades to get there. I got fired up. I wrote a sharp critique of where pork is, called out an industry leader by name for complaining about the problem instead of using his own operation to fix it, and felt pretty good about what I'd written.
Then I read it back and realized I was doing the same thing. I was writing a book report. Diagnosing the problem, describing the failure, handing the assignment to everyone else. Which made me ask a harder question: if most in the industry know pork needs to change, why isn't anybody stepping forward to lead the change?
It does take decades. Look at beef's current position. Look at what Pork the Other White Meat accomplished. Both prove the point. An industry can move the needle when it commits to a direction for a generation.
But pork stayed on that course too long. What started as the right response to a real problem became the industry's permanent identity and an image we are still fighting 39 years later. In 1991, one of my Ag Econ professors made an observation about chicken that stuck with me: "Chicken is just a carrier for condiments." The class laughed. He wasn't wrong. Chicken had become so bland, so lean, so stripped of any distinctive eating quality that it needed a sauce, a seasoning, a recipe to be worth putting on a plate. Around the same time, I remember seeing a sticker at the feed mill where I purchased pig feed: "Support Pork. Run Over a Chicken." The whole industry was locked in on the same target.
Thirty-five years later, we caught the chicken. And catching it meant becoming exactly what my professor described. The Other White Meat campaign ran for over twenty years. It reshaped consumer perception, gave packers cover to reward leanness, and sent a clear signal back through the entire supply chain. Geneticists, nutritionists, producers, packers. Everyone optimized for the same target: take the fat out. I was in the middle of that, looking for leanness modifiers and optimizing amino acid levels using ultrasound and carcass checks to find the leanest solutions.
It worked. The campaign worked. The lean premiums worked. The genetics programs worked. The nutrition programs worked. The industry got exactly what it asked for. The difference is that beef committed to being the best version of beef. Pork committed to being a lean alternative to chicken, and cheap production came along for the ride.
In the push to be the least-cost producer—as if the consumer cares what it cost us to produce the pig—and in our determination to chase chicken, we got exactly what we paid for: bland, marbleless meat that needs a condiment to be palatable.
And now "it takes decades" has become the excuse, not the lesson. The industry uses it to justify standing still. Not pushing for quality pork. Not paying for quality pork. Not confronting the legacy of a campaign that taught an entire supply chain to breed, feed, and reward the flavor right out of the product.
Without a doubt, there is leadership happening. The checkoff's "Pork: Taste What It Can Do for You" campaign is a genuine effort to reposition pork with consumers. But leadership from the checkoff organization can only go so far when those making the real production decisions won't move. I heard a plant manager last winter bragging about the quality of the pigs coming through his plant. This was minutes after a presentation about promoting pork by repackaging it in flavored convenience meals. Those products appeal to real consumers, particularly Hispanic households and younger buyers who want convenience and bold flavors. There's nothing wrong with meeting them where they are. But in those products, pork is the carrier. And if the only growth strategy is building a better package around the same commodity meat, we haven't solved the problem. We've just confirmed what my professor said about chicken, except now he's describing us.
And that's the broader answer the industry has settled on. Pre-made lime-flavored carnitas in a heat-and-eat bag. Pre-packaged pulled pork. Promoting pulled pork sandwiches at a Cleveland Guardians game like that's a win for the industry. Technically, that's selling pork. But is hiding it inside a seasoning packet the path to real demand growth?
Beef doesn't need to disguise itself. A steak is a steak. A burger is a burger. The product carries the brand. Pork is leaning on the recipe to do the job the product used to do. We didn't just catch chicken. We became chicken.
I've been challenged before to offer solutions instead of criticism. Fair enough. I think the solutions are straightforward. Stop paying for leanness. Start using boars that are selected for meat quality. Produce pork loins with much more than 4% intramuscular fat. Make dark red, marbled pork the target instead of the exception.
The genetics exist. If a major operation called a breeding company tomorrow and said "I need a thousand boars that throw this kind of pig," it would take some time but they could fill the order. That call doesn't require new technology. It doesn't require a research breakthrough. It requires someone with enough volume to matter deciding that meat quality is worth selecting for. The breeding companies would respond. They always respond to demand. That's exactly how we got the lean, fast-growing, cheap-to-feed terminal sire that dominates the industry today. Someone asked for it. The genetics followed the money. They'll follow it again if anyone has the conviction to redirect it.
Nobody's placing that call. Not because it can't be done, but because we're still chasing leanness, still chasing cost of gain.
And we need to change how we talk about it. The industry frames every quality improvement as a cost. It costs us $5 a pig to add marbling. It costs us to slow growth rate. It costs us to change the grid. That language tells you everything about the mindset. Stop saying it costs us $5 a pig. Start saying we're investing $5 a pig to make quality. Cost is a complaint. Investment is a decision. And every decision the beef industry made to improve marbling, tighten quality grades, and build a product worth paying a premium for was framed as an investment, not a burden. Pork can make the same choice. It just has to decide the product is worth it.
The new "Pork: Taste What It Can Do for You" campaign is a fresh look at promoting pork consumption, and the intent is right. But until we change the meat itself, we're simply putting lipstick on a pig and telling you she's the prom queen.
The pork industry can do this. We got behind pseudorabies eradication in the '80s and wiped it out. We pushed leanness and consistency through the '90s with the same coordinated intensity. We have the people. We have the drive. We have the talent. But do we have the guts?
We brag about the talent coming into agriculture, the enthusiasm of young graduates entering the livestock industry. I think it's time we drop the reins and give them their head. Let the generation that hasn't spent a career being told lean is the only metric that matters show us what pork could be.