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09 Aug 2011
Magruder Ranch’s crossbred wild hogs pose for the camera
The pork belly trade is over. Well, not exactly over, but done with on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The reason: no one is trading frozen pork bellies any more. 50 years ago when the pork belly futures market was created, producers would freeze the cuts in the fall, selling them in the spring to bacon makers for, according to the media, “millions of bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches.”
Now we eat bacon year round – in everything from the aforementioned sandwiches to bacon donuts. Americans, in fact, consumed 1.7 billion pounds of bacon in 2007.
But this situation begs a few important questions – ones Food+Tech Connect hopes to tease out in the coming weeks, with your help.
- What has happened to the “seasonality” of pork? And if Americans are so obsessed with bacon, how are we using the rest of the “whole hog?” Are we sharing those ideas in interesting ways?
- What innovative ways are chefs, butchers and others using technology to source pork?
- Are there clubs, shops, websites or apps in the works to help consumers find locally sourced pork and other meats?
Food+Tech Connect would like to hear from you on the subject of bacon. Do you have interesting pork (or meat) data? Ideas for apps? Innovative ways of linking the local meat system better?
Share your ideas below or send them to beth [at] foodtechconnect.com
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