Move over, eggs. There’s a new expensive breakfast item in town.
Bacon prices have risen almost 20% since last year, and experts say these prices may not be coming down, thanks to a confluence of market factors.
Pork bacon prices in May were up 5.7% from April and 18% from May 2024, according to an analysis of grocery price data from NIQ.
Bacon prices tend to swing more wildly than other grocery staples tracked by NBC News. But Jim Eadie, the founder and publisher of the pork industry publication Swineweb.com, said it’s possible that bacon’s new, higher costs are here to stay.
“It’s just the cost of doing business,” Eadie said. “With tariffs, wages going up, product supply and demand, the cost to produce a pig … everything combines into that inflation for bacon.”
NIQ’s data, collected from real checkout prices paid at stores across the country, shows that prices for a pound of bacon range significantly depending on where you live, from $4.03 in Dallas to more than $7.00 in Los Angeles.
California’s Proposition 12, which went into effect in 2022 and mandates minimum living requirements for farm animals, also increased pork, and thus bacon, prices, Eadie said.
Egg prices, meanwhile, continued their recent decline in May, falling 6.6% from April. Prices are still up 41% over May 2024.
