Food inflation rate rises for 14th month; Americans pare grocery lists
More and more Americans are switching to generic brands or looking for discounts at the grocery store in response to sustained high food inflation, now running at 10.9 percent — the highest rate since the inflation-plagued late 1970s. Food prices continue to rise even though the overall U.S. inflation rate has slowed notably, said the Labor Department on Wednesday.
Consumers blame Covid-19 for higher meat prices
In the first Consumer Food Insights survey, Americans were six times more likely to blame higher meat prices on pandemic-related shutdowns than to blame meatpackers, who the Biden administration blamed. Some 51 percent of respondents said Covid-19 shutdowns were the cause, compared to 8 percent who chose concentration and market power of meatpackers, according to the survey by the Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability at Purdue University.