When they get food stamps you can tell distribution day. The grocery carts full of hundreds of dollars of beef as you take your pound for the evening meal to the register.
“hamburger ground round which always was a staple of meals in the last recession hit $5”
Ground round is like $10/lb. at my local market.
All the big food/beverage stocks have been tanking lately. I suspect that it has far less to do with diet drugs than with high input/delivery costs (commodities plus oil) and an inflation-squeezed consumer cutting back. Unlike relatively fixed costs like rent/mortgage, cell phone bill, car payments, etc., spending at the grocery store is an area where the typical consumer has the ability to quickly modify and curtail his spending. Everyone has to eat, but you can skip the big bag of Cheetos or the Oscar Mayer bacon and buy something cheaper like a sack of potatoes or a box of the store-brand mac & cheese.