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.
