# Pork: Stocks

You cannot store a live hog, but frozen bellies last a year

Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/stocks/

What this tab covers How much is left and how much is held. For minerals and energy: reserves, current output, years of supply and recycling for the top five countries. For farm commodities: production, ending stocks and stocks-to-use for the top five producers (USDA, October 2026). It also covers inventories and stockpiles.

#### Top five producers: production and stocks (USDA, 2026)

| Country | Production | Share | Ending stocks | Stocks-to-use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **China** | 59,680 | 49.5% | 0 | 0% |
| **European Union** | 22,120 | 18.3% | 0 | 0% |
| **United States** | 12,540 | 10.4% | 204 | 1.6% |
| **Brazil** | 5,000 | 4.1% | 0 | 0% |
| **Vietnam** | 4,055 | 3.4% | 0 | 0% |
| **World** | 120,700 | 100% | 903 | 0.8% |

 thousand t carcass weight. Stocks-to-use = ending stocks ÷ (domestic use + exports) for countries, ÷ world use for the world. Source: USDA FAS PSD database, October 2026 release.

#### Stockholding and policy

Pork is not recycled. The working stock is the breeding herd: China had 39.61 million breeding sows at end-2025 (Muyuan 2025 annual report) and the world held 962 million pigs in 2024 (FAOSTAT). China keeps a state frozen pork reserve that it buys into when prices slump and releases when they spike. US cold-storage pork stocks are forecast at 450 million lb at end-2026, about 2% of annual use of 21.7 billion lb (WASDE, Oct 2026). India has no pork stockholding policy.

Live hogs cannot be stockpiled, but frozen pork can. Frozen bellies keep up to a year, which once made them a futures underlying (Geman, pdf p. 172). The USDA's monthly cold-storage report and quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report are the key US supply signals. China keeps a state frozen pork reserve, buying when prices slump and releasing when they spike. The sow herd is the real capital stock: once sows are culled, supply shrinks for many months (Morgan, pdf p. 231).

## Other sections

- [Summary](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/index.md)
- [Overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/overview/index.md)
- [Correlation](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/correlation/index.md)
- [Extraction](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/extraction/index.md)
- [Production](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/production/index.md)
- [Cycles](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/cycles/index.md)
- [Trading](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/trading/index.md)
- [Movement](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/movement/index.md)
- [Criticality](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/criticality/index.md)
- [Characteristics](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/characteristics/index.md)
- [Emissions](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/emissions/index.md)
- [Relationships](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/pork/links/index.md)