Pork industry braces as FDA shapes ultra-processed food definition

The hog market is sliding. On Tuesday, October lean hog futures dropped fifty-two and a half cents to settle at $79.075, marking a fifteen-month low. The selling pressure was technical and broad—long liquidation meeting weak cash prices across the board. The CME lean hog index fell seventy-three cents to $87.21. The national direct five-day rolling average for cash hogs stood at $85.80. The chart, which had looked friendly to producers weeks earlier, had turned decisively bearish.

But the immediate price action is only part of what has the pork industry watching the horizon. Fifteen meetings are scheduled or already completed at the Office of Management and Budget, each one focused on how the federal government will define ultra-processed foods. The FDA and USDA are working together on a definition, and the stakes extend far beyond marketing language. How regulators draw the line between processed and ultra-processed could reshape what manufacturers put into products, what ingredients they buy, and ultimately how much pork—and grain, and beef, and fish—the market demands.

The meetings tell the story. The Grain Chain is scheduled for September 22. The National Fisheries Institute and American Farm Bureau Federation each have sessions on September 25. The International Food Additives Council met on September 15. The Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association is on the calendar for September 17. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, is also seeking a seat at the table. These are not casual conversations. They are stakeholders trying to shape a definition before it hardens into policy.

The white paper itself—submitted to OMB on August 3 and titled "Proposed Definition of Ultra-Processed Food"—would not immediately impose mandatory warning labels, ingredient bans, or product reformulation requirements. Those would require additional government action and formal procedures. But the definition matters anyway. Once published, it becomes a reference point. Retailers and manufacturers watch federal guidance closely. Institutional buyers—schools, hospitals, corporate cafeterias—often follow it. A common federal definition could shift purchasing decisions and product formulations without any law requiring it.

The central tension in the debate is how much weight to give processing methods, ingredient functions, and nutritional composition. The Institute of Food Technologists argues that regulators should emphasize nutritional quality and recognize what processing actually does: it improves food safety, extends shelf life, and makes nutrition accessible. Broad definitions, they warn, could capture nutrient-dense products like whole-grain breads and yogurts. The National Pork Producers Council made similar arguments in comments released last October, urging the FDA to protect processing methods and ingredients that improve safety, nutrient availability, and shelf stability. But public health researchers see it differently. An expert panel convened by Healthy Eating Research recommends identifying ultra-processed foods through specified ingredient markers—sweeteners, starches, oils, additives—while allowing exemptions for products that meet certain nutritional standards.

For agriculture, the consequences ripple through the ingredients market. Depending on how the definition treats finished products, manufacturers could reconsider particular sweeteners, starches, oils, proteins, or additives. That could shift demand among suppliers without necessarily reducing total food consumption. Grain producers have an interest in how the definition treats breads and cereals. Livestock and seafood producers face similar questions about prepared protein products. The FDA says its joint effort with USDA is intended to support consistency in research, policies, and programs. HHS noted in August that the proposal incorporates feedback from thousands of stakeholders. But thousands of stakeholders do not agree.

Meanwhile, there is another conversation happening in the pork industry: whether domestic pork could help lower burger costs. Walmart and Kroger both sell ground beef-and-pork blends containing eighty percent lean meat and twenty percent fat. The product exists. The question is whether it can expand. The opportunity is real, but three factors shape its potential: what the product can be called, whether domestic pork supplies the needed lean meat, and whether consumers will buy it repeatedly. Federal standards define "ground beef" and "hamburger" as beef products. Adding pork requires a product identity that accurately describes the mixture. McDonald's, which explicitly markets its patties as one hundred percent beef, would need a separate offering or a change in that commitment. The processing issue is pork leanness. Ground-beef manufacturers blend lean meat with fattier trimmings to reach a target fat level. USDA notes that processors use roughly ninety-percent-lean cow beef and fifty-percent-lean fed-cattle trimmings, with imported lean beef helping meet blending needs. Domestic pork could serve part of that lean-meat role, provided it meets the required specifications. Pork production can respond faster than cattle production, but substantial expansion still takes months. The National Pork Board puts gestation at about one hundred fourteen days and birth-to-market time at roughly six to seven months. Consequently, additional production beginning with breeding generally requires about ten to eleven months, before allowing for any expansion of facilities or breeding-stock development. The quickest supply response would come from redirecting existing pork into blends. Larger sustained growth would depend on profitable demand, available barns, and processing capacity. For agriculture, the effects would be mixed. Successful domestic blends could increase pork demand and support feed use. But pork substitution could also reduce demand for domestic lean beef. The benefit to cattle producers would depend partly on whether pork displaced imported trimmings, domestic beef, or purchases consumers otherwise would forgo.