25 OCT 2017 (01:52 UTC-07 Tango 06)  03 Aban 1396/04 Safar 1439/06 Geng-Xu (9th month) 4715

Virginia based, yet China owned, Smithfield Foods is about to get a huge boost in demand from its biggest buyer, China!

Smithfield Foods was taken over by Shuanghui Group (aka WH Group) in 2013.  Smithfield has many slaughterhouses across the U.S. and sells pig products under many brands;  Cook’s, Eckrich, Gwaltney, John Morrell, Krakus, and Smithfield.

WH Group is now boasting it is “The Largest Pork Company In The World.”  In August it made a $25-million USD investment in U.S. online food seller Chef’d to sell Smithfield products.  On 24 OCT 2017, WH Group announced a deal to provide China’s online food seller JD.com (aka JDFresh) with Smithfield pork.

JD.com is boasting that from 2016 to 2017 its online sales of pig meat exploded by more than 780%!  And that’s pork sales just in China!  That’s sounds good for Chinese consumers who love to shop online, but what does it imply for consumers in the U.S.?

The ‘law’ of supply and demand would say that if pork supplies in the U.S. declined due to increased demand from overseas buyers, then naturally the price for U.S. consumers will go up.  U.S. price increases could be halted if another cheap source of pork could be found, probably in another country since the biggest pork producer in the U.S. is owned by China.