News Pork
McDonald's stunt with free bacon in America
Fast food chain McDonald's has been putting extra bacon on its burgers in the United States since January. Wendy's also entices customers with extra bacon. Due to the low pork price in the US, bacon has become dirt cheap.
Bacon is apparently so cheap in the US that McDonald's recently gave it away for free for 1 hour. Every customer was entitled to 2 free 'strips of bacon' on his/her burger, fries or even ice cream. The fast food chain has more than 14.000 branches in the US, spread across the country. This makes the US the largest McDonald's density per 10.000 inhabitants.
Low pig price
The US pig price (the Iowa/Minnesota listing) was $1 per kilogram of carcass weight at the end of February. The price has never been this low in the past 20 years, in the first quarter of the year. This price is partly caused by the trade war with China, which is putting pressure on exports. China is one of the main buyers of American pork.
That is also the reason why meat stocks in the US are rising rapidly. This is at the expense of the price for bacon, which has fallen sharply. Both Wendy's and McDonald's claim that the promotion is not linked to the low pig prices. However it may be; the giveaways indicate that bacon in the US is dirt cheap and probably up for grabs.
Tim Roetman
© DCA Market Intelligence. This market information is subject to copyright. It is not permitted to reproduce, distribute, disseminate or make the content available to third parties for compensation, in any form, without the express written permission of DCA Market Intelligence.