February brought with it the threat of a national bacon shortage. While this could be potentially devastating – who wants to eat an LT with no B? – we can all rest easy. Someone saw startlingly low numbers in the frozen pork belly reserves and jumped to conclusions.

Once the “news” got out, it was hard to stop its viral spread. Twitter was filled with bacon panic, Instagram feeds suddenly filled with images of bacon. When it threatens bacon, the world takes notice.

This kind of news doesn’t ruffle feathers at D’Artagnan. We are not part of the commodity bacon scene – we are the polar opposite. Our hogs are raised by a cooperative of small farms, dedicated to preserving raising old breeds including Berkshire, Tamworth, Duroc, Landrace and Hampshire.

The cooperative is strict about banning the use of antibiotics and hormones on each farm, and limiting the number of hogs the farms raise. The hogs are fed on pasture, with access to water and supplemental grain consisting of corn, soybeans and rolled oats. The majority of the farms are sustainable “circle farms” that grow and grind their own feed for the pigs. We know our farmers, and we know our hogs. They make great bacon.

We are a far cry from the industrial bacon machine, which produces 75 million pounds of pork belly a week. There is no strategic reserve of pork belly in our world.

If you want to experience the D’Artagnan difference, you can find our bacon here. We highly recommend putting in a supply, shortage or not. Just create your own strategic reserve in the freezer, so you won’t be caught without bacon.