Summer grilling season normally brings strong demand for pork, but that hasn’t been the case this year. The weak demand at the meat case has resulted in a downturn in hog prices, and along with that, a dip in USDA's price forecasts for this year and next.

“We reduced our 2024 hog price forecast by $2.12 cents per hundredweight,” says USDA Outlook Board Chairman Mark Jekanowski. “It's now at $59.13 cents per cwt.”

The 2025 average price could come in about 38 cents lower than that.