Blog
Food Prices See Strong Inflation, And More May Be on the Way
February 17, 2021
With people on lockdown and eating more at home, commodity prices for ingredients like wheat and sugar and are surging, resulting in higher costs for producers. According to reporting from Reuters, food manufactures may be looking to pass these higher costs on to consumers. Industry titans like Kraft Heinz and Conagra have acknowledged that inflation is here and that prices will have to change accordingly.
This may be bad news for consumers who have already seen their grocery bills steadily climb in recent months. U.S. consumers paid 3.7% more for food consumed at home in January than they did a year prior, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index. Year-over-year increases in food prices have surpassed 3.5% every month since last April. This is the longest stretch of consecutive increases in nearly a decade.
The increases come as economists fear we may see a return to inflation across the broader economy.