Market events

African swine fever in China (2018-19), global hog-supply shock

2018–2020: a documented market event that overlapped the wholesale price windows of 3 tracked ingredients — co-occurrence in time, never an asserted cause.

What happened

China, the world's largest pork producer, confirmed its first case of African swine fever (ASF) on August 3, 2018; the virus spread to every province by mid-2019. USDA ERS documented that China's swine inventory fell more than 40% year over year by late 2019 and that Chinese pork production fell sharply, with reduced Chinese output sharply increasing demand for imported pork; US pork exports to China through November 2019 (more than 790 million pounds) were more than double the same period in 2018. China Ministry of Agriculture / industry estimates put the hog inventory decline at 320.8 million to 190.9 million head by August 2019 (~40%), the sow herd down about 39%, 2019 production down roughly 21%, and about 143 million pigs dead from disease or culling.

Documented account from our open, cited registry (sources below). Shown as context beside the price record — co-occurrence in time, never an asserted cause.

Affected ingredients

Why these ingredients were exposed

Each affected ingredient's public supply structure — where it comes from and how much it leans on imports. Context that makes the co-occurrence with a documented event legible, never its cause.

  • Pork bellyDomestically sourced comes almost entirely from domestic production, with little import buffer (reliance ~2% by value). Its exposure runs through domestic production structure, not import origins — a domestic event overlaps its price window.
  • Pork loinDomestically sourced comes almost entirely from domestic production, with little import buffer (reliance ~2% by value). Its exposure runs through domestic production structure, not import origins — a domestic event overlaps its price window.
  • Pork shoulderDomestically sourced comes almost entirely from domestic production, with little import buffer (reliance ~2% by value). Its exposure runs through domestic production structure, not import origins — a domestic event overlaps its price window.

Reliance is a share of import value, a rough exposure proxy, not a supply-security score. It explains why an ingredient sits in the path of a documented event — not that the event caused any price move. Co-occurrence in time, never a cause.

The detected moves that overlapped

Each figure is a wholesale reference against its own ±26-week normal — a market move, never a delivered price.

  1. Pork loin — May 2020: the wholesale reference ran +110% above its ±26-week normal, held 77 days.

    Co-occurrence in time, not a cause.

  2. Pork shoulder — May 2020: the wholesale reference ran +100% above its ±26-week normal, held 35 days.

    Co-occurrence in time, not a cause.

What moved together

Co-occurrence, not cause

Pork Belly

In this dataset, Pork Belly's notable moves didn't share a direction with any other tracked ingredient — it moved on its own.

Pork loin

In Pork loin's 6 notable moves, these ingredients ran the same direction in the same weeks:

  1. Beet2 of 6 moves
  2. Ground Pork2 of 6 moves
  3. Pork shoulder2 of 6 moves
  4. Ribeye2 of 6 moves
  5. Striploin2 of 6 moves

Pork shoulder

In Pork shoulder's 6 notable moves, these ingredients ran the same direction in the same weeks:

  1. Ground Pork6 of 6 moves
  2. Pork loin2 of 6 moves
  3. Striploin2 of 6 moves
  4. Asparagus1 of 6 moves
  5. Beef tenderloin1 of 6 moves

Moving in the same weeks is not one thing causing another — many of these share a growing region, a shipping lane, or an aisle. It is a directed, bounded count: in K of an ingredient's own notable moves, another ran the same way.

Sources

2 sources
Check your own invoice against this reference All market events

Documented events come from our open, cited registry (CC‑BY). Price moves are detected from public history (USDA/BLS/FRED) and shown as co-occurring context, never asserted as the cause. How events are picked.