Homegrown bacon output to plunge

Brits will have much less homegrown bacon this year as pork output plunges, threatening to keep prices high, stated a recent report, saying the UK’s pig sector has been battered in recent years.

Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) said on Friday (10) that since financial pressures prompted farmers to sharply reduce breeding herds, pork output could sink as much as 15 per cent this year.

Lower domestic output means more imports will be needed to fill the gap, according to livestock analyst Freya Shuttleworth.

The lower availability is expected to further add to costs at grocery stores for households being squeezed by the cost—of-living crisis. UK meat inflation is already running 15 per cent above a year earlier, and tighter supply could push prices even higher.

But with consumers sensitive to paying more, additional gains “will have to be carefully considered” at risk of curbing demand, Shuttleworth said.

The outlook report describes 2022 as ‘one of the most challenging years for the UK pork sector’, with continued negative farm margins resulting in a significant drop in the breeding herd, while war in Ukraine ‘added further fuel to the fire of increased input costs’.

“As we head into 2023, the industry continues to face some tough challenges. The cost-of- living crisis both domestically and globally, input cost inflation and continual pressure from disease risks are to name but a few,” AHDB report said.

Tens of thousands of animals were culled because slaughterhouses were short of workers in the wake Brexit and the Covid pandemic. Then, Russia’s war in Ukraine boosted producers’ feed and energy costs.

AHDB’s report comes weeks after UK pig farmers voiced alarm over shrinking sector, stating that total pig population has fallen from about 8 million in the 1990s to just over 5 million today. Industry experts say the number of “significant-sized pig producers” left in the UK is likely to be “in the hundreds now”.