HELENA — Tizer Meats in Helena is predicting a pork shortage come this Fall.
"I keep buying them until we satisfy the market. Well, we didn't satisfy the market, we just had to finally shut it off because we sold well over 800,” Tizer Meats manager Matt Elvbakken said.
“We're a relatively small shop for taking on that big of a bite, but we didn't know that we would sell that many and we basically sold that many in three days.
Elvbakken is referring to Tizer Meats’ sale of processing a live hog for $300. Originally, it was $500.
Tizer Meats says the price is low because processing plants had to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making hogs priced low, but it may not be that for long. The sale states there is an incoming pork shortage.
Elvbakken says some hog farms had to euthanize some of their baby pigs because they didn’t know how long this pandemic would last.
"Now you’re going to have a week or 10-day block in there that there ain't gonna be any hogs available. So, that's where the shortage is going to come," he told MTN News.
Elvbakken predicts the price of pork and possibly other meats will go up between September to October of 2020. He says he won’t be surprised if an average $2.50 pork chop will go up to about $5.
So, what can consumers do to prepare for this shortage?
"Go to the fair this summer and buy a pig at the fair and buy it local and get it processed local,” Elvbakken advised. “It's going to be a consumer education deal for people who have never bought a half of beef, or a whole hog, or half a hog.”
