This year's grand champion ham was one pricey piggy.
The ham sold for a record breaking $4.8 million at the Kentucky Farm Bureau breakfast at the state fair on Thursday morning.
Two groups of bidders split the cost of the ham. Central Bank, and Joe and Kelly Craft will pitch in $2.4 million for the ham. Kelly Craft is a former United Nations ambassador and Joe Craft is a coal industry billionaire, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.
"I always knew country ham was valuable, but I didn't know it was this valuable," Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles told the newspaper.
The money from the sale will be split between multiple charities.
The multi-million dollar ham came from Beth and Ronny Drennan of Broadbent B & B in Kuttawa, Kentucky. The ham weighs 17 pounds so the bidders payed $282,352 a pound or around $1,764 an ounce, according to WBRD.
A lot of work goes into picking the champion ham. A single judge evaluates dozens of hams for "for shape, color, meatiness and overall appearance" weeks before it's sold, according to WFPL. The judge's process involves poking the ham with an ice pick and tasting a small piece of the meat.
The hams were not always so expensive. In 1964, the first grand champion ham sold for $124, or $1,092 in 2021 dollars.