Why is bacon so expensive?

Quick answer

Bacon rides the price of the pork-belly cut, not the whole hog.

A pound of sliced bacon averages $6.58 — about 13% below its October 2022 record and −7.5% versus last year.

13% below the October 2022 peak

Where bacon prices stand

Bacon has eased from its peak but is still one of the priciest staples in the cart: a pound of sliced bacon averaged $6.58 in July 2026, −7.5% from a year earlier and +0.3% from the prior month — leaving it about 13% below the record $7.61 it reached in October 2022.

What drives bacon prices

Bacon is cured pork belly, and the belly is a single cut whose price often moves on its own: when demand for bacon outruns the rest of the carcass, belly prices can jump even while overall pork is calm. Underneath that, bacon still rides the broader hog market — how many animals come to slaughter and the cost of corn and soybean-meal feed — and curing and slicing add a processing margin on top of the raw belly. That stack of premiums is why bacon sits well above most other staples per pound.

A real shelf price

Every figure here is the BLS average retail price for sliced bacon, tracked monthly since January 1980 — an actual dollar amount shoppers paid, not a wholesale belly quote or a forecast.

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Frequently asked questions

How much does bacon cost right now?

Sliced bacon averaged $6.58 per pound at the U.S. city average in July 2026, per BLS CPI Average Price Data.