The outline of the Wall Street Journal story was very familiar to anyone who has followed wine industry trends in recent years. The product had a long history and was well-loved in America and around the world. But the industry itself was in crisis. Demand was down. Part of the problem was health concerns and part of it was price (its retail price was higher than the most popular substitute). Worse of all, younger consumers were turning away.

Production costs kept rising and rising, but retail prices not so much (or at all, in some cases) eating margins and leaving red ink stains on the account books where black ink profits once regularly appeared.

It all had a familiar ring, except (here’s the punch line), the story was about pork, not wine. “We’re not eating enough bacon, and that’s a problem for the economy,” the headline proclaimed.

Does misery like company? If so, I guess I now feel solidarity with pork producers. Or is it a case of miserable company? I don’t know. But I decided to dive into the article, looking for lessons from the pork crisis.

Lesson One: Re-Education is Difficult.

Wine has a health problem. Moderate wine consumption can be part of a healthy diet (the French Paradox effect), but alcohol itself has many detrimental effects. If you define wine by its alcoholic content, then that’s a problem for health-conscious consumers, who are increasingly drawn to no- and low-alcohol wine (and to the not-wine alternative, too). A challenge for the wine industry is to tell a positive story in the face of the negative anti-alcohol headwinds.

Once upon a time, pork had serious health issues, too. Pork was fatty, which discouraged health-conscious consumers, and needed to be very thoroughly cooked (165-170 degrees) to avoid the disease trichinosis. Changes in production methods over the years have created a healthier product, which is leaner and safer to eat without over-cooking. Pork has become so lean that foodies now seek out fattier heritage breeds with more flavor.

The facts about pork have changed, but consumer attitudes have not changed with them. It isn’t easy to re-educate consumers once the conventional wisdom has been established. It will be hard for wine to change the narrative, too.

Lesson Two: The Perils of Generic Marketing

What would a generic marketing campaign for wine look like? I don’t know (I’m not sure “Got Wine?” would do the trick), but a lesson that we can learn from the pork industry is to be careful what you say and how you say it.

“Pork, the other white meat” was a popular ad campaign that raised awareness of pork products and created an opportunity to establish pork as an alternative to low-fat chicken.  The good news is that it might well have prevented a steep decline in pork consumption in the past.

But, the WSJ article reports, the campaign seems to have backfired in the current environment because, if you compare pork to chicken, the chicken is likely to be cheaper — and that matters a lot.

The WSJ article quotes one stakeholder who suggests maybe they should have tried to position pork as a cheaper alternative to beef rather than the new chicken. But, as the graph shows, beef consumption is falling, so maybe that’s not the optimal strategy. The current campaign is “real pork makes a real difference.” Really? Is the goal to lure people away from fake pork? Or is it to discourage chefs from using chicken instead of pork in traditional recipes? Not sure.

Wine needs to take the pork experience into account and remember that wine is more expensive on a per-serving basis than beer or spirits (on average) and a moderate wine consumption message, even if effective, can’t change that.

Lesson Three: Innovation

I was especially interested in the WSJ’s report on how pork producers are innovating to try to stimulate demand. Innovate? How can you innovate something as basic as bacon or a pork chop?

As noted above, some farmers are going back to the future by re-introducing heritage pig varieties that have more fat and flavor than the lean pork products that have taken over the market in recent years. Foodies will look for (and pay for) heritage breeds.

Bacon is a favorite pork product and there are lots of different styles in the supermarket meat case. Smithfield is innovating by making bacon that is more convenient to use, needing just 10 minutes in the oven to crisp up rather than the usual 20 because of special processing before packing. Quick bacon.

My favorite innovation idea (I like the idea, but I haven’t tried the product yet) is Tyson Food’s “pork griller steak.” This is a new cut of pork that Tyson seasons and marinates. It is designed to be flavorful and easy to cook. You can grill it, broil it, pan fry it, or even cook it in an air-fryer so long as you stop cooking when the internal temperature reaches 145 degrees. Note that the recommended temp is well below the old cooking standard for pork, producing a result that is more tender and juicy.

The Folly of Complacency

Some people may be uncomfortable with this wave of innovation in the pork business, but it seems to me that change is nothing new for bacon, ham, and chops. A lot of new ideas will need to be tried to discover the ones that make a difference.

The same is true in the wine business. As a traditionalist, I am not always persuaded by the new wine ideas I see on the shelves. But, as I said recently in a public radio interview with reporter Tina Caputo, “If we simply make the same wine, packaging it the same way, sell it with the same message, we will get the same result.”