Of hogs and Hollister

By Joe Spear

It’s the holiday season and that usually means a ton of money will be heading to Mankato in the wallets and purses of shoppers from Belle Plaine to the Iowa border.

It’s been said that the amount of money coming into the Mankato region from the sale of hogs is more than the money brought to town by River Hills Mall.

A quick check of the numbers offers this very rough estimate on my part with the help of Uncle Google. River Hills Mall and its anchor stores bring in about $443 million a year. Again, this is not an official number.

Hogs, I estimate at bringing in approximately $510 million a year based on the 2.834 million hogs raised and sold in the nine county Mankato region.

It’s getting closer every year with the retail gaining on the hogs. River Hills retail will soon likely take over hogs in terms of the economic impact on the Mankato region because hog prices will vary greatly from year to year. One down year for hogs may mean they’ll lose their standing as a primary economic driver for the region.

Still, during the holiday shopping season, it’s safe to say the thousands of people pouring into Mankato region will favor Hollister over Compart’s Boar Store, and that’s no offense to Compart’s.

And we shouldn’t turn our nose up at the hog industry.

It finances at least some of the kids who walk into Hollister with $200 and walk out with a pair of jeans and a designer t-shirt.

The retail fashion/hog hub helps make Mankato’s economy diverse.

The hog industry will help keep us humble as Mankato moves to a burgeoning micropolitan area. Fashion, wine bars, exotic restaurants are sure to follow. I think we’re all still struggling a bit with this more cosmopolitan identity. The humble, reserved, Lake Wobegon crowd may just not be quite ready, in large numbers to support an Ikea store.

Maybe we just need to get in touch with our porcine side. We need to remember that although we live in a beautiful regional area with clean cities, fancy streetscaping, Dickens-like street lamps, we’re surrounded by 2.834 million hogs. That’s 17 times more hogs than people in the regional market area.

We can take some solace, however, in the fact that most of these hogs are very clean. They’re now raised in hog barns or condominium-like places where the humans have to take a shower before entering.

I’m not making this up. Apparently, a human germ can do a lot of damage to a hog barn housings hundreds of animals.

And to their credit, these hogs mostly are not even seen, much less heard. You’re not likely to run into them at the mall. They sort of blend into to the crowds or the countryside. Yet, they remain the humble bullwork of the southern Minnesota economy.

New stores will come and go, but Mankato will likely hold onto its hog traditions for decades to come.

Joe Spear is the managing editor of The Free Press.