> SOUTHERN INDIANA —
Cindy Shoup Cacy knew the pork industry was on a rebound this spring when she and her sister, Amy Shoup Mennen, appeared on the QVC home-shopping channel on Memorial Day weekend promoting their pork burgers.
The sisters, whose family-owned business, Shoup’s Country Foods, which specializes in pork products and seasonings, made a similar appearance in 2009, not long after international health officials stopped calling a new influenza virus the “swine flu” and switched to the more scientific “H1N1.”
Sales of the Shoup pork burgers during that 2009 appearance on QVC by the Frankfort sisters were mediocre. When they returned this spring, their entire QVC inventory of more than 106,000 quarter-pound pork burgers sold out.
“People were afraid of pork last summer,” Cacy said. “By this spring, the scare had passed.”
But not without first taking its toll on an industry that employs more than 13,000 Hoosiers.
When the Indiana State Fair opened recently, pork hogged the spotlight. It’s the Year of Pigs at the fair and pork-themed events — from a ham breakfast on opening day to a celebrity pig-kissing contest near the fair’s end — are designed to highlight Hoosier hogs and the families that make their living off them.
As Indiana Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman noted recently, the fair’s primary mission is to educate fair-goers about the role of agriculture at a time when many families are generations off the farm.
“It’s important to connect the farm gate to the food plate,” Skillman said.
That connection was perilously close last year for Indiana pork producers, who’d spent years ramping up production as demand for pork rose both domestically and internationally. Indiana is now the fifth-largest producer of pork in the U.S.; about 20 percent of the pork produced here is shipped overseas.
But the H1N1 virus that lead to global pandemic last year also triggered a global alarm that caused several major pork-consuming countries — including China — to close their borders to U.S. pork.
Despite repeated assurances from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control that it was humans and not pigs transmitting the virus, pork consumption plunged.
Joe Kelsay, director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, said the misnomer of “swine flu” cost the Indiana pork industry an estimated $50 million to $60 million.
“People were asking, ‘Is my food safe?’ ” said Kelsay, a sixth-generation family farmer. “We had to go into education mode fast.”
State and federal agricultural officials joined the pork industry to counter the damage. Kelsay said they succeeded in getting the message out that pork was safe, but the impact remains.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, export of U.S. pork in May 2010 was up 53 percent from May 2009. Domestic demand for pork in June 2010 was up significantly over June 2009. But wholesale and retail prices have fluctuated, in part because pork producers were forced to cut inventory after last year’s scare.
“Pork farmers are more optimistic now than they’ve been in a while,” Kelsay said.
The Shoup sisters are doing their part to keep the optimism going.
They’ll be at the state fair every day, pushing pork. Their “Garbage Burger” — a pork burger topped with pulled pork and a Shoup secret seasoning — was selected in a contest as the fair’s “Signature Food.”
A 9-foot-long fiberglass pig, transformed by their late father, Tom Shoup, into a walking, talking mascot, is in the fair’s nightly parade.
“It was a rough year for the pork industry last year,” Cacy said. “But it’s on a comeback.”
Maureen Hayden is statehouse bureau chief for CNHI’s Indiana newspapers. She can be reached at maureen.hayden@indianamediagroup.com
