Prices for many categories of food have been slow to retreat from pandemic-driven peaks, said the USDA. As a result, seafood and poultry prices throughout the year will be higher than usual, bolstering the USDA forecast that grocery prices will rise by 3 percent this year.
“Forecast price ranges for poultry and the category of fish and seafood have been revised upward this month,” said the USDA in its monthly Food Price Outlook. It said poultry prices would rise by 5 percent and fish and seafood by 3 percent this year. Its previous estimates were a 4.5-percent rise for poultry and 2 percent for seafood. Usually, poultry prices rise by 2 percent and fish and seafood by 2.4 percent annually.
“Meat prices have continued to decline, but the pace at which they are declining is not fast enough to reach the average 2020 prices that were expected before the pandemic,” said the Outlook. Beef prices have fallen since July but still were 10.2-percent higher than one year earlier.
Food inflation generally tracks the overall U.S. inflation rate, but it is running ahead of it this year. The U.S. inflation rate was 1.4 percent, according to the Labor Department.