US – USDA released its latest report and predicts that in 2023 we will pay even more for our food.
The Consumer price index reported that from June 2022 to July 2022 food prices increased 10.9 % higher than in July 2021. That inflation is not expected in 2023 but expected at around 6.5 to 7.5% according to the USDA.
Between the 1970s and early 2000s, food-at-home prices and food-away-from-home prices increased at similar rates. Since 2009, however, their rates of growth have mostly diverged; while food-at-home prices deflated in 2016 and 2017, monthly food-away-from-home prices have been rising consistently since then. The divergence is partly due to differences between the costs of serving prepared food at restaurants and retailing food in supermarkets and grocery stores.
In 2020, food-at-home prices increased 3.5 percent and food-away-from-home prices 3.4 percent. This convergence was largely driven by a rapid increase in food-at-home prices, while food-away-from-home price inflation remained within 0.3 percentage points of the 2019 inflation rate. The largest price increases were for meat categories: beef and veal prices increased by 9.6 percent, pork prices by 6.3 percent, and poultry prices by 5.6 percent. The only category to decrease in price in 2020 was fresh fruits, by 0.8 percent.
In 2021, food-at-home prices increased 3.5 percent and food-away-from-home prices increased 4.5 percent. The CPI for all food increased an average of 3.9 percent in 2021. Of all the CPI food-at-home categories tracked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Economic Research Service (ERS), the beef and veal category had the largest relative price increase (9.3 percent) and the fresh vegetables category the smallest (1.1 percent). No food categories decreased in price in 2021 compared with 2020.
Read the entire report here: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20food%20price%20increases,between%206.5%20and%207.5%20percent.
