Consumers Get Some Relief From High Pork Prices

Retail customers on average dished out $4.064 per pound for pork in November, 6.5 cents lower than October but 28.8 cents higher than Thanksgiving 2013. Cost the of production, according to farm belt economists, is the lowest since August 2010. Hog slaughter last week was 2.298 million head, up 2 percent from the previous week and down 2.8 percent from last year. Pork cut-out prices at times last week were below the previous year for the first time since February. Weights averaged a bit more than 285 lbs, up a bit over 4 pounds from 2013 during this time frame. Weights have been inching up for more than a year.