As Proposition 12 takes effect, L.A. pitmasters face a ‘once-in-a-generation’ pork price crisis
LOS ANGELES — It’s 10 a.m. on a hot Friday in July at Ray’s Texas BBQ in Huntington Park. Sebastian Ramirez, who oversees the smokers with his brother, Raul, has already been awake for five hours. The pork spare ribs, cooked low and slow, have been in the smoker for four.
“Las costillas, Sebastian,” says Raul, touching the brim of his hat that reads “GoodEnough.”
“Ah. Sí. Las costillas,” says Sebastian. While the rest of the kitchen prepares the gooey mac and cheese, crisp coleslaw and signature BBQ rice to be served as sides, Sebastian slides on a pair of thick rubber gloves burned to black at the fingertips. First right and then left. He then heaves open the metal doors to reveal a long slab of ribs, glistening beneath a swath of aluminum foil and beet-red parchment paper. A plume of smoke rushes out from behind the doors and hovers below the ceiling.
“Listos,” he says. They’re ready.
In less than two hours, a herd of industrial workers will form a line up to the register, ready to devour a pound of meat on their short lunch break. What they may not know as they ring the lunch bell is that Los Angeles barbecue pitmasters are carrying an unseen burden.
In the 2018 California general election, 62.66% of voters gave Proposition 12 the green light to make meat production more humane. The latest, and arguably one of the most contentious, statewide animal rights initiatives seeks to expand the confinement areas for calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens and breeding pigs on any farm whose product is sold in California.
Now, five years later, pork is moving staggeringly slowly through the supply chain. Travis Cushman, deputy general counsel of the American Farm Bureau Federation, estimates that at most 7% of breeding pig farms have met the proposition’s standards — and some just may never get there.
In response to ongoing pushback from the pork industry, the Superior Court for the County of Sacramento instituted a temporary relief period, beginning July 1 of this year, that allows suppliers to continue selling noncompliant pork until Jan. 1, 2024.
The catch? Suppliers must have bought enough pork to last those six months prior to July 1. As pork producers attempt to stretch their noncompliant inventory to the end of the year and make necessary updates to farms, pork prices have risen dramatically.
In July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected increased pork prices for the remainder of 2023 and into 2024 due to “tighter-than-previously expected supplies of hogs and expectations for relatively strong demand for hogs at the national level,” it said in a statement. While the USDA does not directly report on the conditions of the pork market at the local or state levels, it does account for the degree that state-level policy can affect national markets. The projection, released monthly, has not indicated pork prices this high since Proposition 12 went into effect at the beginning of this year.
In the face of constricted supply and increasing pork prices, Los Angeles pitmasters who are defining the city’s barbecue style with oak-smoked pork ribs and thick pulled pork sandwiches now are squirreling away the last bit of pork they can find on the shelves to be able to open for the day.
As customers grow more disgruntled over rising prices on menus, pitmasters worry that Proposition 12 could be the last straw to cause their margins to finally collapse. Arnold Rodriguez, founder and seasoned pitmaster of Black Sugar Rib Company, said inflation is straining his business with a level of force he’s never seen before.
“Jalapeños have gone up several dollars apiece,” said Rodriguez, lifting up his baseball cap and wiping the sweat off his brow. “Mayonnaise has more than doubled by the gallon, and we don’t even sell mayonnaise! It’s an ingredient that’s part of a side item that we don’t even sell!”
