Patio Pondering: Hiding in Plain Sight — Pork, the Best Value in the Meat Case

This morning I stepped out onto the patio to enjoy my coffee and the fall-like chill in the air, only to find part of our flock of sheep grazing in the backyard. They weren’t supposed to be there. My morning plans changed before the day even started.

Earlier this morning, when returning from the school drop-off line, my mind returned to a recent shopping trip to Costco. The memory stuck with me: boneless center-cut pork chops at $2.99 a pound, whole boneless pork loins at $2.29 a pound. And just across the aisle? Beef New York Strips for $16.99 a pound.

As I thought about my trip to the meat case, I was hit with two questions. First, why are we as the pork industry not shouting about the great value pork offers compared to all-time high beef prices? Second, why are pork prices so low when beef prices are at all-time highs? As pork producers recover some of the equity they’ve lost over the past few years, those questions feel more important than ever.

Here’s the part that kept circling in my head: why isn’t anyone telling families about this? For households watching grocery bills climb, pork is a protein bargain hiding in plain sight. You can put high-quality meals on the table without draining your wallet.

Pork is so cheap that you can grind a whole loin and you’ve got ground pork that stacks up just fine against hamburger at a fraction of the cost. Meanwhile, the pork industry seems more interested in clever slogans than in shouting this simple truth from the rooftops: pork is the best value in the meat case today. Maybe the industry should tweak its new campaign to say, “Taste What Pork Can Do Without Draining Your Wallet.”

Just like my sheep that wandered where they shouldn’t be, pork value has wandered into the wrong place too — sitting there quietly in the case when it should be front and center. Maybe it’s time we in the pork industry start pushing to consumers what we already know: pork is the best value in the meat case, regardless of marketing campaigns or slogans.