Canadian bacon, eh!

September 7 is International Bacon Day, a day to celebrate the sizzling, smoky, salty, crispy slice of heaven. Canadian hog producers reported just under 14.0 million hogs on their farms on July 1, 2024. When given time to fatten up, these hogs have the potential to make 220.4 million 500-gram packages of bacon.

Fewer but larger hog farms with porkier pigs

The number of farms reporting pigs during the 2021 Census of Agriculture was down by 11.7% from five years earlier to 7,423. At the beginning of the millennium in 2001, there were over twice as many farms reporting pigs (15,472 farms).

While fewer farms are raising pigs, those that do are reporting larger herds with heavier pigs. In the spring of 2021, the average pig herd size was 1,963, up from 1,677 in 2016 and over double the herd size in 2001 (902).

The pigs are also getting porkier, with their average weight at the time of processing rising from 107.4 kilograms in 2022 to 111.2 kilograms as of July 1, 2024.

Most of Canada’s pigs live in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba

Quebec farmers reported a nation leading 4.3 million pigs as of July 1, 2024, up 0.1% from the same day a year earlier.

Hog herd numbers in Ontario increased 2.4% year over year to 3.7 million hogs, while Manitoba’s inventories increased 4.4% to 3.5 million.

Combined, these three provinces accounted for just over four-fifths (81.3%) of Canada’s hog herd as of July 1, 2024.

Bacon prices subject to inflation

In July, Canadians were paying 9.8% more for bacon year over year and bacon prices were up over one-quarter (+25.7%) compared with prior to the pandemic in July 2019.

Americans love Canadian bacon

Much of the bacon produced in Canada annually is destined for foreign markets. In 2023, Canadian producers exported 18.6 million kilograms of cured side bacon, fetching $134.1 million. Almost all of the cured side bacon exported from Canada in 2023 was destined for the United States.

In the United States, back bacon is often referred to as Canadian bacon. In 2023, Canadian producers exported 202,165 kilograms of back bacon, with almost all of it going to California.