Supplies of holiday hams and some pork products are being stretched as Covid-19 precautions challenge meatpackers’ workforces.
As a result, some meat suppliers are placing limits on how much pork supermarkets can order, grocers said, leading to less variety and fewer pork promotions ahead of Christmas.
“You may not find every variety and flavor,” said Dan Glei, executive vice president of merchandising and marketing at K-VA-T Food Stores Inc., which operates as Food City.
Covid-19 cases have surged around the country at the same time that the U.S. pork industry is usually busiest. Farmers truck greater numbers of hogs to slaughterhouses ahead of the U.S. holiday season and China’s Lunar New Year holiday in late January, typically a peak season for meat consumption in the world’s biggest pork market. U.S. farmers and meatpackers call it the “fall hog run.”