While bacon can boast enduring popularity -- with broad consumer appeal including an almost cult-like status for some bacon fans as evidenced by National Bacon Lover’s Day on Aug. 20 -- deflation persists for the bacon marketplace. While July brought another month of single-digit food and beverage inflation across U.S. retail, according to Circana (formerly IRI), bacon saw a double-digit dollar sales contraction while pounds sold bumped up just over 3%.
At retail, bacon’s performance is lagging compared with other products in the meat case.