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Tide turns for pork demand

After 19 months of economic strife, innaccurate reports associating the H1N1 virus with the swine herd was the last thing the pork industry needed. Cash and futures prices fell dramatically on the misinformation, but the tide began to turn this week.

Dallas Hockman,Vice President of Industry Relations for the National Pork Producers Council explains "We're very glad to see that most of the media is now referring to the virus as H1N1 instead of swine flu. It seems to have turned around, no only from the aspect ofconsumer polling as consumer confidence continues to go up, with 90% of our pork consumers thinking pork is safe."

More importantly, Hockman said, demand for pork is on the rise. Both cash and futures prices have made positive progress this week. Meat demand isgood and Hockman said there are good reports from retailers with feature activity.
He is hopeful there will be a "rubber band effect" so the market goes back up as quickly as it came down.

Hockman credits industry groups working together toget the message out that pork is safe with the marked recovery of prices and consumer confidence in pork.

There are detractors who took this opportunity to try to tie animal handling practices with food safety. Hockman was disappointed to see some groups try to use thishuman health crisis to further their cause. However, because key influencers clearly understood the H1N1virus is not swine flu and defined it as H1N1, these detractors were identified as such.