Who's ready for bacon currency?

The actor, Josh Sankey, will embark this week on a promotion for the Oscar Mayer division of Kraft Foods that is being called the Great American Bacon Barter. The promotion includes a Web site, baconbarter.com; social media like Twitter; and a public relations campaign.

Mr. Sankey’s trailer will be filled by Oscar Mayer with a ton and a half of its new Butcher Thick Cut bacon, which he is to trade for food, fuel, a place to spend the night and anything else he might need during his trip from the New York area to Los Angeles, by way of a route that is to include what Oscar Mayer executives describe as bacon-loving locales like Charleston, W.Va.; Louisville, Ky.; Chicago; and Council Bluffs, Iowa. …

The new Oscar Mayer product is intended to capitalize on a national craze for bacon that has spawned a rash of higher-end brands, sold by mail order as well as in supermarkets. The mainstream bacon brands like Oscar Mayer, Hillshire Farms, Hormel and Armour are scrambling to keep up with the newcomers.