food inflation
Grocery prices rise 11.9 percent in a year, worst increase since 1979
Led by meat, grocery prices are rising rapidly, up 11.9 percent in the past 12 months — even faster than the overall U.S. inflation rate of 8.6 percent, said the government in the Consumer Price Index report. "We're going to live with this inflation for a while," said President Biden over the weekend, despite administration efforts to reduce prices.
USDA raises food inflation forecast for fourth month in a row
Bird flu outbreaks are driving up egg and poultry meat prices far faster than usual, with eggs expected to cost 20 percent more and poultry 9 percent more this year than their 2021 averages, said the Agriculture Department on Wednesday.
Grocery prices up 10.8 percent even as overall inflation rate declines
Although the U.S. inflation rate slowed to 8.3 percent for the year ending in April, food continues to cost more and more, said the Labor Department on Wednesday. Grocery prices shot up 10.8 percent in the past year, driven by higher prices for such foods as bacon, up 17.7 percent, chicken, up 16.4 percent, and eggs, up 22.6 percent.
After record high, a marginal decline in global food prices
Sharply lower prices for palm, sunflower and soybean oils helped pull down the Food Price Index marginally from its record high that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Grain prices also fell during April while meat, dairy and sugar prices rose.
What’s for dinner? Highest annual food inflation rate since Reagan era.
U.S. food prices will soar by an average of 6.8 percent this year, the highest annual rate since President Reagan's first year in office — and that's assuming price increases slow in coming months, said a University of Missouri think tank on Monday. Sky-high commodity prices are a factor, "but higher labor and energy costs and a range of other factors are much of the story," said the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute.
Largest grocery price increase since 2008
Grocery prices will rise by an average of 5.5 percent this year, the highest inflation rate at the supermarket since 2008, said the Agriculture Department on Monday. The forecast was an abrupt 2 percentage point increase from last month and was spurred by three months of rapid rises in the prices of many foods.
Packers: ‘We’re not to blame for high meat prices’
The chief executives of the nation’s four largest meatpacking companies said on Wednesday that they were not the cause of surging meat prices at the grocery store, which are up by 15 percent in a year. And they told a skeptical House Agriculture chairman David Scott there was no pact to drive up profits at the expense of consumers or limit the meat supply for Americans.
Despite inflation, taste matters more than price to food shoppers, says report
Americans say they are spending an additional $15 a week on food but that inflation is less important to them at the grocery store than buying good-tasting food, according to a survey by Purdue University. “At present, consumer food demand is price insensitive,” said the Consumer Food Insights report.
Premature to talk about next steps on climate change — Vilsack
The USDA will seek maximum impact from the $1 billion that it will put into climate-smart pilot projects, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday, but he demurred at discussing next steps for agriculture in mitigating global warming. "We'll see where the applications take us," he told the North American Agricultural Journalists meeting.
Meatpacking leaders to speak at House hearing on industry concentration
The chief executive officers of Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS, and National Beef — the four largest meatpackers in the country — will testify at a House Agriculture Committee hearing on consolidation in the meat industry, said chairman David Scott.
CPI report: Grocery prices rocketed up by 10 percent in past year
From meat to milk, grocery prices galloped higher, rising by 10 percent in the last 12 months, said the Labor Department on Tuesday. It was the biggest increase in food-at-home prices in 41 years, according to the monthly Consumer Price Index report.
Pushed by high meat prices, food inflation rate hits 7 percent
Food prices are rising at a faster and faster rate, reported the Labor Department on Thursday. Food inflation, a modest 2.2 percent a year last May, started 2022 at a 7 percent gallop, the eighth month in a row the rate has gone up.
Food inflation to decline in 2022, if coronavirus cooperates
Food prices surged by 6.3 percent during 2021, nearly three times the usual rate of annual increase, but food inflation is expected to decrease this year, said the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday. Retail prices for beef and pork "show signs of weakening," and many commodity prices are forecast to decline late this year following large global harvests, said an AEI paper.
USDA says food inflation rate to soar, highest since 2008
Prices for common elements of the U.S. diet, from poultry and dairy to fruits and vegetables, are rising at double or triple their usual rate, said the government in forecasting the highest annual food inflation rate in 14 years. The Agriculture Department said food prices would rise an average of 5 percent this year, an abrupt two-point increase from its forecast a month ago.
Supply chain issues, not profiteering, to blame for high prices, says pork industry report
Although the White House blames big meatpackers for driving up food prices, the real culprits are higher costs and labor shortages all along the supply chain, said a pork industry report on Wednesday. Four packers control 65 percent of hog slaughter in the United States, but the industry is less concentrated than it was five years ago.
Meat prices are going up but not as fast as in 2021
Beef and pork prices are going up again this year but the increases will not be as severe as last year, said the USDA on Tuesday. The monthly Food Price Outlook reported that beef and pork prices would rise by 3.5 percent for the year, and that "Upward pressures on meat prices are expected to ease in the latter half of 2022."
Think tank sees highest annual food inflation rate in 14 years
U.S. food prices will rise by at least 4.2 percent this year, propelled by high energy and commodity prices, said a University of Missouri think tank on Wednesday. The group’s director said the actual figure could be higher still.
White House puts politics ahead of protein, claims trade group
President Biden is getting bad advice in painting the meat and poultry industry as a villain behind sharply higher grocery prices, said the president of the National Chicken Council in an essay published on the chicken-raising Delmarva Peninsula. "This administration has chosen to put politics above protein," wrote Mike Brown, the trade group president.