“It was a small luxury, something people found comforting,” said Dorsch, who has judged several bacon events throughout the U.S. “Even though a premium bacon might be more expensive than a grocery store bacon, people wanted good food.”

The founders of the Blue Ribbon Festival, who also host events in Keystone, Colorado, and Reykjavik, Iceland, weren’t trying to catch a wave, they were just building on their love of bacon. Porter and Brooks Reynolds grew up near each other in Des Moines and ate bacon as an after-school snack. As adults, a group of friends spent a weekend at Porter’s family vacation home and went through so much bacon they called the getaway the Beer and Bacon Festival.

The getaway turned into an annual weekend with a bacon theme, in which it had to be incorporated into everything they ate. Around that time, a newspaper reporter doing a Q&A about entertainment asked Reynolds what Des Moines needed.

“A bacon festival,” was his answer and he and Porter put one together. The first was in 2008, drawing about 200 people to a Des Moines bar. It kept outgrowing its space and the next festival is moving to a place that can accommodate 17,000.