Food Prices Soar, Up 10.4 Percent From Last Year, Biggest Jump Since 1981

Rachel Siegel reported on the front page of today’s Washington Post that, “Inflation soared in June, continuing to climb at the fastest pace in 40 years across many sectors of the economy, driven in large part by higher energy prices.

Today’s article pointed out that, “Few aspects of daily life have been left untouched by inflation. The food index rose 1 percent in June and is up 10.4 percent compared with the previous year, the largest 12-month increase since February 1981. The price of chicken has ballooned 19 percent in the past year, the biggest increase ever.”

Gwynn Guilford reported in today’s Wall Street Journal that, “A trip to the supermarket is increasingly a blast from the distant past. Grocery prices shot up at their fastest pace since 1979 in June, rising 12.2% from a year before.

“Margarine prices rose 34.5% in June, the fastest annual pace since 1975. Hot-dog prices climbed 16.3% in June, the most since the late 1970s, as outdoor grilling season got under way. A shopper with a sweet-tooth faced cookie prices that leapt 14.7% from a year before, while those for frozen or refrigerated pies and other pastries shot up 17.2%.

“Several factors are behind soaring grocery prices, including weather, diseases affecting citrus trees and chickens, and the war in Ukraine. That conflict has disrupted global production and trade of grains and oils, and drought in some parts of the world have exacerbated that. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a report Tuesday that it expects reduced global production of wheat and oilseeds in the coming year.

“Groceries make up 8.3% of the consumer basket.”

And yesterday, Bloomberg writer Michael Hirtzer reported that, “Beef steaks and pork chops were some of the only goods to see prices fall at US grocery stores last month, according to government data released Wednesday.

“Prices for a basket of foods including meat, poultry, fish and eggs dropped 0.4% from the previous month, taking seasonal adjustments into account. That’s signaling slight relief from soaring inflation, even as food prices generally increased the most in four decades.

“The decline is linked to consumers who are trading down to cheaper meats, swapping out steaks for burgers, pork chops for hot dogs. The average price of uncooked beef steaks in the US was $9.83 a pound in June, among the highest prices ever seen in Bureau of Labor Statistics data.”