Posted on 06/26/2021 4:57:55 PM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
Food prices are surging in grocery stores and restaurants, hitting small businesses very hard.
“They haven’t gone up. They’ve almost doubled,” said Nick Rando, owner of an Italian restaurant in Natick, Massachusetts. Rando said that in January, red meat and steak cost him $7.35 a pound. “Last week, it was $13.20 a pound.”
People in Massachusetts have been complaining about the rising costs of other food products like produce, meat and prepared foods. But this phenomenon isn’t just happening in one state. According to the National Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of cereal and bakery items have risen by five percent. Fruit and vegetable prices have risen by one percent and dairy products are up by 0.6 percent.
Restaurant owners like Rando buy their products in bulk, and they can see the rising costs when everything is added up. “You see it at the register, but when you’re buying like 300 pounds a week and all, then it starts to hurt,” said Rando.
Restaurants forced to raise prices to remain profitable To avoid operating at a loss, Rando has had to raise the prices on his restaurant’s menu. This is something that’s happening at restaurants all over the country.
Chipotle Mexican Grill recently raised its prices by as much as four percent across the menu to help offset rising food and labor costs. The restaurant chain recently hiked the hourly pay for its workers up to $15 an hour.
“There are some inflation pressures that we’re all feeling, the whole industry is feeling, even outside our industry is feeling – right now it’s labor,” said Chipotle Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung. “If you lose the staffing game in this business, it’s not going to end well.”
Other nationwide restaurant chains have also shown their willingness to increase menu prices. McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said he was willing to cover the rise in labor costs with “judicious pricing on the menu.” McDonald’s recently raised hourly wages at company-owned stores by 10 percent.
Other restaurant chains like KFC and Wendy’s are rolling back their discounted combo and value meal options. Instead, these chains are promoting their costlier menu items to boost sales and offset the increasing cost of food and labor.
“We have seen prices that we’ve never seen before,” said Jim Tselikis, the co-owner of seafood restaurant chain Cousins Maine Lobster.
“We’re just seeing this continuing ramp-up of demand on the lobster system,” said Annie Tselikis, Jim’s sister and the other co-owner.
Rise in food prices reflect global breakdown of supply chains Food prices in the U.S. are rising in tandem with a broader inflation trend. Labor, vehicle and fuel costs have all risen. This has affected the price of consumer goods.
In May, consumer prices in America hit their highest level in 13 years after they rose five percent from the previous year.
“We are in a period of unprecedented commodity inflation,” said Unilever CEO Alan Jope.
Global supply chains have also been breaking down. Severe drought, shipping delays, the aforementioned labor shortage and other issues have made food and other key commodity items more difficult to obtain.
The drought in countries like Brazil and Argentina has driven up the prices of food products like soybeans, corn and coffee. The shipping delays have been caused mostly by a global shortage of shipping containers. This shortage has made it more difficult to transport goods, causing delays. These delays have made transportation costs surge, which in turn has affected virtually every commodity in the U.S.
As restaurants continue to hike their prices, experts believe the prices will only begin evening out when the problems plaguing the supply chain disappear. But no one knows how long the crisis will last.
“Time to break out the pressure canner again…..”
Ours gets regular use.
Yours should, too.
L
“The regular Wendys hamburger now looks like the kids size. The bag of chips I used to eat went from 2.5 oz down to 1.95 oz.”
That’s called “shrinkflation” .
Ice cream (and Klondike Bars), tuna, mac & cheese, frozen pizza, crackers, fast food, jerky, fruit juice, candy bars...search on “shrinkflation examples” for more.
The Brits seem pretty pissed about it.
An article on shrinkflation
https://supersavingtips.com/food-package-size/
I’m waiting for pricing by weight to end soon.
That’s called “shrinkflation” ... Ice cream (and Klondike Bars) ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Noticed this in some ice cream sandwiches I bought the other day. It had been years since I had had an ice cream sandwich and I was trying to make sense of their tininess. Shrinkflation strikes again, I guess.
Our future is...
conveyor belt sushi
Okay, maybe some folks don’t like sushi, but conveyor belt //food//
One of my best friends lives in a small apartment in a low income part of town. There are so many ‘food programs’ here that her next door neighbors, who are adept at taking advantage of ALL of them, have food stacked up in their apartments. She was telling me the owner of the building did walk thrus awhile back and told her next door neighbor she had to get rid of all the boxes stacked in her living room. They were all full of food. Canned goods, etc.
Free food is now an entitlement far beyond SNAP/WIC...
It does, but not frequent.
We are making a set up to do the pressure canning outside on a new burner I got for Christmas. :)
The kitchen in the house we sold was PERFECT for canning and I did do it regularly. Our new house came with a glass cooktop which is all but useless for cooking and cannot be used for canning as per the stove and canning kettle instructions.
And on top of that, I suspect a lot of the traffic that these restaurants depended on hasn’t come back, or at least doesn’t order as much.
I was in downtown Chicago this past week...the foot traffic on the street at midday was more like what I remembered from a holiday or day before a holiday. Most workforce-based restaurants that I saw were still closed or gone altogether. And of those venues that are open, from what I hear, the average tab is down something like 10-15% from before the shutdowns...people are sitting longer and buying less.
Yes, here in the city we get some of the overflow from an industrious neighbor who collects such, plus we have a bench outside that people place unwanted food for anyone to take, mostly because they know we are part of a small ministry that distributes surplus privately donated food (we use a little ourselves). However, this year the number of those who show up weekly has been about half as before since there is so much GI food.
“I mean, there are days that I swear, they are out to sink their own companies.”
- - - - - -
This is happening. Read “Atlas Shrugged” for the game plan. Lined out by Hearst. Noted and explained (also why) by John Todd, back in the 70s. The John Todd recordings are on YT in various places. There are six.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.