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USDA – Food Prices Continue To Rise

Despite earlier optimism that food prices would begin to fall slightly, the USDA ways prices continue to climb.  Prices in the local grocery stores had generally risen about 2% before COVID and in the past year that was closer to 3.5%.  USDA economist Carolyn Chelius says they hoped to see the price increase fall back to the 2% mark, but that is not happening.

Chelius says “a new normal” may be stretching things a bit, but prices increases are not slowing.

She says meat prices are up across the board poultry is up about 6%, pork is about 10% higher and Beef is up about 12%.  Those increases are driven by the increase in feed costs of 20-30%.

On the other side, demand for meat products remains high while supply is what she called lower to stable.