Maybe It Isn’t the Price

Last week a beef industry leader commented on my “$5 a pig” clip. He wrote that the mindset across the pork industry has been a significant competitive advantage for the beef industry.

He’s right, and I cannot argue with him.

Last Wednesday I stopped at our local Meijer and photographed three signs in the pork case. Butt roast at $1.79 a pound, down from $2.99. Back ribs at $3.49, down from $4.99. Buy one boneless tenderloin or half loin, get the second for a dollar.

It’s Porktober. It should be a month when we celebrate pork. I looked for a Porktober display, a Pork Month sign, anything that marked the month, and found nothing. Just a price drop and a deadline. Had those ads been tied to a Porktober promotion, I’d see it differently. Instead, they read like an industry begging for sales.

Pork is the best value in the meat case. And we are still fighting demand. The cutout keeps dropping, exports have been weak, and the margin on the production side keeps getting more negative.

After I wrote the first draft of this, I heard Chip Flory, Shaun Haney, and Jim Wiesemeyer talk about this very topic on AgriTalk AM: pork futures falling, and domestic demand that hasn’t risen as hoped, even with beef prices this high. The discussion included growing concern among growers that “maybe we’ve cookie cuttered these pigs too much,” and that maybe the pork chop is a little too lean. When the people who have their finger on the pulse of this industry are talking about it, that tells you something. I’m not the only one seeing this problem.

So maybe it isn’t the price.

Maybe it’s taste. Maybe it’s marbling and quality. Maybe no one knows how to cook pork anymore, because we spent decades making it lean and then told people to cook it until it was dry. A few weeks ago I wrote that we got exactly what we asked for. Those signs tell me the shopper did too.

Here is the part that should get the attention of anyone running a pork operation. The latest reports show inventory flat to lower, but pigs per litter keep climbing, and the packing plants still need to run full. Every pig we raise needs a plate to land on. If we keep getting more pork from every sow without growing demand, the sale sign becomes the strategy. A discount gets someone to try pork once. Taste gets them to come back.

I see announcements about grants for the swine industry, and they are almost all producer focused. PRRS eradication. Biosecurity. The impact of death loss. Without a doubt, those matter, and I’m glad someone is funding them. But where are the projects to improve our product?

We are investing heavily in keeping more pigs alive and getting them to the plant. We are investing very little in what happens when someone sits down to eat one. If we continue with the attitude of “That’s the Checkoff’s job,” the pork industry will continue to fight for demand.

The National Pork Board has powerful wheel horses, good people and real dollars, but they can only do so much pulling a wagon with a broken axle. No matter how hard they pull, the progress is nil. The broken axle is the same old, same old: lean, pale, flavorless pork. That is not theirs to fix alone. It belongs to us, not just the people in Clive, Iowa. Until the rest of us fix what’s in the case, the best promotion in the world is pulling dead weight.

That is a problem, and it’s one this industry is built to solve. We wiped out pseudorabies. We built the lean pig in a generation. When we decide what matters, we line up genetics, nutrition, and processing behind it, and it happens.

I know the genetics exist. I saw it last week from a group in Minnesota. This was a commercial hog farm, not some niche, boutique homesteader promoting his few pigs. Someone has already built the pig, and the pilot I’m asking for doesn’t start from scratch.

Maybe I’m wrong about the answer. Maybe better pork chops are what moves pork. Maybe repackaging it as carnitas and pulled pork works. I don’t know. What I do know is that something has to change, or pork stays where it is.

So here is the ask, and I’m making it to the people who can act on it.

If you run a packing plant, an integrated system, a genetics program, or a retail meat department, pick a defined number of pigs and run a quality pilot. Select boars for eating quality. Pay for marbling in the grid. Put that pork in front of shoppers and measure whether they buy it again. Call it what it is, an investment of $5 a pig, and not a cost. If quality isn’t the answer, the pilot will tell us, and we’ll try something else. Either way, we stop guessing.

The checkoff can’t carry this alone. If you’re a producer, packer, or genetics company, ask what your piece of the eating experience is, and put someone on it.

The beef leader told us what the competition sees. That’s uncomfortable, but it’s also a gift, because it points right at the opportunity.

I’m looking out at the Patio this morning, trying to see through the fog. Maybe our job to promote pork is similar. We can picture what’s on the other side, but getting there is the hard part. If you’re someone who wants change, message me here. Let’s talk.