Although a pork industry group based in the UK warned consumers of a looming worldwide shortage,we’ve got plenty of bacon to go around here in the United States. Which is either a cause for celebration for you pork aficionados or will elicit a shrug from those not worshiping at the bacon altar.

Plans to stockpile your favorite bits of the hog can be put aside, as there will be plenty of pig products at supermarkets in the next months. The only bum part of the deal is that prices will likely be going up a bit, reports the Associated Press.

Because of the shortage of the drought there isn’t as much feed being grown and harvested to feed food-producing animals. That fact could boost pork product prices up by as much as 10% by next year, but those in the know in the U.S. say talk of a global bacon shortage is totally overdoing it.

According to the AP:

“Use of the word `shortage’ caused visions of (1970s-style) gasoline lines in a lot of people’s heads, and that’s not the case,” said Steve Meyer, president of Iowa-based Paragon Economics and a consultant to the National Pork Producers Council and National Pork Board.

“If the definition of shortage is that you can’t find it on the shelves, then no, the concern is not valid. If the concern is higher cost for it, then yes.”

In addition, the American Farm Bureau Federation dismissed all the bacon panic as well.

“Pork supplies will decrease slightly as we go into 2013,” Farm Bureau economist John Anderson said. “But the idea that there’ll be widespread shortages, that we’ll run out of pork, that’s really overblown.”

This all boils down to people who know a lot about our nation’s supply of pigs telling the rest of us to just simmer down now. There will still be plenty of bacon on your sundaes, breakfast plates and whatever other products that can possibly be flavored with the stuff.

Come on now, let’s all indulge in one collective deep sigh of relief. Ahh, that’s better now, isn’t it?

Bacon shortage may be hogwash, but prices will go up [Associated Press]

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