By now, you’re used to paying more at the grocery store — during the last two years, prices jumped by a whopping 16%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Many of us would be fortunate enough to be able to absorb the sudden cost increases on what the government’s Consumer Price Index calls “food at home” — if that was all we had to contend with.
But it’s not. Food out of the home, known better to the people who used to be able to afford it as “eating at a restaurant,” costs so much more now as well, as does housing, fuel, your morning Starbucks run and — probably, soon enough — just sitting in silence and trying to breathe
Take heart, the experts say — things are improving, at least in what’s known as the grocery sector. Except these days, improvement is measured differently than it was prior to 2020.
“For the last six to 12 months, the rate of inflation has fallen significantly, but that doesn’t mean that prices are declining. They’re just not going up as much,” Michael Swanson, chief agricultural economist at Wells Fargo told Eat This, Not That!
“Consumers just have to associate a new price point with everything they buy in the supermarket. We’ve come to a new plateau, relatively speaking. We stepped up from over pre-COVID where we are today and we aren’t going to shoot up anymore. But, we’re not gonna drop that much either,” the pro warned.
The 2024 Consumer Price Index, or CPI, backs up the experts — a lot of things are looking pretty stable, albeit at their new, often increased normal, for the beginning of the year. Bread, milk, things like that — they’re looking better, the outlet reported.
Then, there’s the rest of the store, which is often still being impacted by bad weather, disease, conflicts and no doubt new problems we’ve yet to even consider. Here are five trouble spots to look out for — and budget around — this spring.
Eggs
The trouble began in 2022, when avian flu decimated flocks from coast to coast — by early 2023, Americans were paying an average of $4.82 per dozen eggs.
Now, while we’re no longer quite so shocked when we hit the egg case at the grocery store, prices remain terribly high. Worse still, the CPI shows that the cost of a dozen is inching back up again, too — 4.6% in March, after climbing by 5.8% in February and 3.4% in January.
Why is this happening again? More bird flu, the pros say — 13.64 million egg-laying hens have died so far in the latest round of sickness, according to the USDA’s Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook report. Don’t look for much in the way of relief, any time soon.
Beef
In January, American ranchers reported the lowest numbers of cattle in the country in generations — down to 87.2 million, which would be akin to 1951 numbers. (There are a whole lot more beef eaters in the country now.) The astonishing new statistic comes on the hooves of adverse weather and economic conditions that have battered the industry over the last year or so.
“The latest cattle numbers are a stark reminder of the challenges facing America’s farmers and ranchers,” said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, in a February statement. “Severe weather, high inflation, and geopolitical uncertainty are taking a toll on farmers across the country, and families will see the effects in their grocery bills.”
Specifically, according to the CPI, that means prices for beef and veal have climbed 7.6% over this time last year. For luxury items like steaks and roasts, the increases are even steeper. Once again, there’s no relief on hand — experts say prices will reach record levels in 2024 and remain an issue next year.
“The thing about the beef category is that it’s very slow to fix,” Swanson said. “It just takes years to really make a big difference. And we’ve just really started that process.”
Frozen Juice
Bacterial infection hammered Florida’s citrus crop in 2023 — not long after hurricanes wreaked havoc on the region in 2022. You know where this is going — or at least, where it went.
For now, the news is improving, with experts predicting a more robust growing season this year; the CPI shows that the cost of citrus has plummeted by 1.3% since one year ago.
But, for whatever reason, that joyful news has not reached the juice case — frozen orange juice and other sweet concentrates from the can have risen a rather blatant 27.5% since just last year.
Blame the cost of sugar, labor, transportation, but either way, get ready to fork over more than 50% more than a year ago, in some cases, for your morning hit of Vitamin C.
Lettuce
Can we interest you in some kale? She’s so much cheaper than her nutritionally inferior neighbor on the produce aisle, which rocketed up 6% in March, after smaller but not insignificant rises in February and January.
Once again, that’s due to weather in California and Arizona, where we mostly get our lettuce from, particularly at this time of year.
“Alternating weeks of warm and cold weather, as well as rain and hail, have reduced supplies,” industry tracker Blue Book reported.
What’s left is often of poor quality — discoloration, mildew and rot have become commonplace, even as prices rise.
Expect the issues to continue, as California experiences an unusually rainy spring. Great for some things, not good for growing lettuce, apparently.
Adversity is nothing new for West Coast lettuce growers, however — in 2022, an bug-borne virus walloped the area of California where roughly half the country’s lettuce is produced. Growers ended up losing $150 million in revenue.
Chocolate
Sure, you could live without it, but who would want to? Still, the decision might wind up being made for plenty of us, with prices going up 11.6% last year and no sign of slowing this time around.
With disease and weather ravaging West Africa, which grows about 70% of the world’s cocoa, steeper tariffs could be the new normal, according to reports.
“The cocoa from West Africa has spiked to real bubble levels,” Swanson says. “If they’re gonna make chocolate bars and chocolate chips from that they’re going to have to raise the prices because they can’t go bankrupt.”
And raise them they have — have you noticed the price of chocolate candy lately? That’s because major companies like Hershey and Cadbury are happily passing increased costs on to consumers.
“In the U.S., snacks in general have been slumping a little bit over the last two months, likely because they are a little bit more discretionary in nature,” Goldman. “Within the category itself, we have seen some shifting away from chocolate to other products, whether that’s cookies or salty snacks. We think chocolate’s losing a bit of share, so consumers are certainly reacting to higher prices.”
