U.S. accuses Agri Stats of illegally sharing meat company data
The analytics company Agri Stats has violated antitrust law for years by sharing information with chicken, pork, and turkey processors about their competitors’ costs, output, and prices, said the Justice Department in a lawsuit filed on Thursday. Processors used the reports to restrain production and raise prices to consumers, said the lawsuit.
After relentless increases, food inflation rate stands still
Higher consumer demand and lower supplies are driving up pork and egg prices, but after increasing for six months in a row, the U.S. food inflation rate for 2022 is unchanged this month, said the USDA on Thursday.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
Largest U.S. farm group opposes cattle market quotas
While supporting more transparency in cattle prices, the American Farm Bureau Federation draws the line at requiring meatpackers to buy slaughter cattle on the cash market, said president Zippy Duvall. Mandatory purchases are a prime feature of the leading Senate bill for cattle market reform.
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.
More competition will reduce meat prices in fight against inflation, says Biden
Acknowledging "we need to get inflation under control" as part of the economic recovery from the pandemic, President Biden said on Wednesday that the administration will inject competition into the highly consolidated meat industry to bring down prices at the grocery store. Meat prices soared by 14.8 percent during 2021, part of overall food inflation of 6.3 percent.
After months of climbing, food inflation reaches 6.3 percent
Meat prices fell in the final weeks of 2021, but food inflation climbed again, to an annual rate of 6.3 percent, said the Labor Department on Wednesday. The overall U.S. inflation rate of 7 percent for the past 12 months was the highest since June 1982.
Food prices rise at fastest pace in 41 years
The food inflation rate is up for the ninth month in a row and now matches the U.S. inflation rate of 7.9 percent a year, with double-digit increases in the price of meat, milk, and fresh fruit, said the government on Thursday. Prices for groceries rose even faster, 8.6 percent, than the overall food index, which includes food sold at restaurants, fast-food outlets, and company cafeterias.
Stability uncertain after global food prices surge 28 percent in 2021
World food prices soared by 28 percent during 2021, according to an index based on five major commodities, including cereal grains, meat, and sugar, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Thursday. The abrupt increase, as the world recovered from the economic collapse that accompanied the pandemic, ended five years of relative stability in the Food Price Index.
Year-on-year food inflation is highest since 2008
Pushed by high meat prices, the Food Price Index will surge by 3.5 percent this year, its largest increase since the 5.5 percent rise in 2008, said the USDA on Tuesday. Food prices typically rise about 2.4 percent a year.
Meat prices climb on high demand and supply constraints
Strong consumer demand for meat and labor shortages at packing plants were factors in persistently high meat prices this year, said the USDA on Tuesday in a monthly report on food inflation. Meat prices were forecast to climb by 6.5 percent this year, double its long-term average of 3.2 percent annually.