Would you like some bacon to go with that?

Washington

PIZZA chain Little Caesars last week unveiled a deep-dish pizza wrapped with more than three feet of "decadent" thick-cut bacon. A day earlier, Starbucks debuted its own bacon-y surprise: a 540-calorie double-smoked bacon breakfast sandwich "sure to satisfy any bacon lover's craving". There was a time years ago when bacon was one of America's most inescapable fad foods, the star of an increasingly wacky line of dishes with its own cult-like following. But the bacon backlash was swift, with some saying the cured-pork craze had "gone too far" and was "officially dead". Yet even after a devastating 2014 for the pork industry - when an epidemic diarrhoea virus killed millions of pigs and drove prices to new records - the unstoppable business of bacon retained its place as one of the best-selling meats in America.

Now, with the outbreak under control and hogs back in heavy supply, pork prices have plummeted, leading analysts to make a new prediction: Americans can expect even more bacon debuts at big restaurants in the months ahead.