We cant get enough of pulled pork, from US-style barbecue joints to slow-cooked shoulder at home. But has the craze peaked with pulled pork ready meals and flavoured crisps?
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Five years ago, few people in the UK had heard of pulled pork. Barbecue meant cremating supermarket bangers and pulled generally referred to a late-night liaison in a ropey nightclub. Fast-forward to 2014, and the hog is everywhere. There are pulled pork Walkers crisps; ready-made pulled pork meals are sold in all the supermarkets; it featured as a pie filling on the BBCs Bake Off; and it is literally in the air, making the new British Airways first-class menu. There has been a £10m sales growth in pulled pork products in the past year, according to research by 2 Sisters food group, and the US barbecue market is now worth more than £68m in the UK.
The ubiquity of pulled pork is inseparable from the trend for US barbecue restaurants. It started with modernisation of barbecue foods in the US around 2008-10, says Charles Banks, the co-founder of food trendspotting agency thefoodpeople. This craze for contemporary barbecue spread to the UK with two of the first authentic joints: Pitt Cue Co in London and Grillstock in Bristol.
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