Food inflation jumps more than 10% – here are the new costs for family dinners

Although inflation – which jumped to 9.1% in June – is driving up the cost of daily consumer goods, consumers are feeling significant pain when it comes to buying food.

According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) – which is a broad measure of the price of daily consumer goods – food prices have outpaced headline inflation, rising 10.4% in June from a year ago. one year old. This takes into account food at home and in restaurants.

Food-at-home inflation, which represents food purchases at grocery stores and supermarkets, rose further to 12.2%, underscoring that consumers aren’t getting much breathing space trying to cook at home.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently raised its food price increase forecast for 2022. The agency now estimates that all food prices will increase between 8.5% and 9.5% in 2022. Out-of-home food prices are expected to increase by 6.5% to 7.5%, and at-home food prices are expected to increase by 10% to 11%.

Katherine Cullen, senior director of industry and consumer insights for the National Retail Federation — the nation’s largest retail group — told FOX Business that there are several variables currently impacting the food cost.

This includes the war in Ukraine, ongoing labor market shortages, fuel costs, droughts and other natural disasters in key markets where wheat and corn originate. These factors increase the costs of products that depend on these items as well as the cost of animal feed, according to Cullen.

Besides natural disasters, Cullen noted that an outbreak of bird flu has driven up the cost of poultry and eggs.

Meredith Wilson, chief executive of strategic intelligence and advisory firm Emergent Risk International, told FOX Business that food price inflation, which piggybacks on energy price inflation, is hitting investors particularly hard. families because costs accumulate at each stage of the supply chain.

“Inflation builds up as it moves up the supply chain,” Wilson said. “Ultimately, the products they buy at the store are a triple whammy — inflation pricing for all inputs and costs before they get to them — the consumer,” Wilson said.

For people on a budget, these price increases “can be very difficult and cause them to reduce their purchases of healthier foods and products, which tend to be more expensive, leaving them to buy lower quality foods and less nutritious,” she said.

Even Arkansas-based Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, has acknowledged that rising costs of basic necessities, such as food and gasoline, are causing shoppers to retreat from discretionary items.

“Rising levels of food and fuel inflation are affecting how customers spend,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in an earnings report Monday.

To see how much food prices have changed, FOX Business broke down the cost increases of common dinner dishes using CPI data:

• Rice: prices increased by 11.9% in June
• Bread: 10.8%
• Meat: 8.2%
• Beef: 4.1%
• Pork: 9%
• Poultry: 17.3%
• Fish and seafood: 11%
• Fresh vegetables: 6.5%
• Frozen vegetables: 9.8%
• Canned vegetables: 14.3%