Food trends: Americans go hog wild for pork

It's boom times for pork enthusiasts.

Americans celebrating Memorial Day this weekend - the unofficial kickoff to summer and the grilling season - can keep the party going with cheaper pork chops.

Even amid voracious domestic and foreign demand, retail prices have stayed relatively low thanks to ample supplies. Bumper grain crops have reduced costs to feed animals, and the United States is heading for a year of record red meat and poultry production.

While output is booming across the board, pork is looking especially attractive as it's discount to beef has been widening, favoring more baby-back-rib feasts for the summer.

'Consumers are going to have their pick when it comes to protein, at prices that are better than what they've seen in a few years,” said Will Sawyer, an Atlanta-based director of animal-protein research at Rabobank International. 'It's a good time to be a carnivore.”

After the Fourth of July, Memorial Day is the most popular occasion for barbecuing, a survey by Weber-Stephen Products showed. Americans spent about $208 million on pork for the holiday in 2016, data from market researcher Nielsen show.

Retail prices have fallen just in time for the parties. Pork chops in April were the lowest for the month since 2011, the latest U.S. government data show.

While bacon has climbed from a year ago, it's still down more than 5 percent from a peak reached in June 2014. Pork also has gotten relatively cheaper when compared with beef, at the wholesale level.

The U.S. hog herd was up 4.2 percent over last year as of March 1, the latest USDA data show.

While pork production is soaring, demand has grown faster. The gains helped pushed spot-hog prices up 26 percent so far in May, a sign that retail costs may not stay low for long.

U.S. per capita pork consumption in 2017 is forecast up 0.8 percent from 2016. In the first three months of the year, American exporters shipped 17 percent more than in 2016, led by demand from Mexico and Japan, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

That's soaking up big supplies. Stockpiles of pork in cold storage at the end of April were the lowest for the month since 2014, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.

'The demand profile has really offset a lot of the price pressures that are associated with growing supplies,” said Trevor Amen, an animal-protein economist at CoBank in Greenwood Village, Colo.

Still, the recent price gains are also improving profit margins for producers, which may drive further expansion and help supplies catch up to demand. The USDA forecast output up 3.3 percent next year.