Posted on 10/09/2021 1:27:16 PM PDT by MNJohnnie
Food prices across the world have risen to their highest levels in a decade on the back of tightening supply conditions robust demand, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The FAO’s food price index, which measures world food commodity prices, has surged by 32.8 percent in the 12 months through September, coming in at a reading of 130 points, a level not seen since 2011. On a month-over-month basis, the index rose 1.2 percent.
Accounting for the bulk of the rise in the index were higher prices of most cereals and vegetable oils.
The FAO vegetable oil price index was up 60 percent in September compared to a year earlier, and 1.7 percent up from August. The cereal price measure was up 27.3 percent over the year last month, and 2 percent from August.
Dairy and sugar prices also rose in September by an over-the-year 15.2 percent and 53.5 percent, respectively, while the meat price index was up 26.3 percent above its level a year ago.
While much of the inflation story has been focused on surging energy costs and products impacted by the semiconductor chip shortage like used cars, rising food cost signals are increasingly flashing red.
As the U.S. economy rebounds, packaged food companies are grappling with inflation, with Conagra Brands Inc. saying on Oct. 7 that it would increase prices again on its frozen meals and snacks.
Conagra said it was facing rising costs of ingredients including edible oils, proteins, and grains forcing it to increase prices on frozen goods by 3.5 percent and on staple meals by 3.3 percent.
Food-makers General Mills, Campbell Soup, and J.M. Smucker have also raised wholesale prices in response to rising ingredient and freight costs.
Pork and beef prices have surged in the past few months, while the Labor Department’s August inflation report showed that meat, poultry, fish, and eggs were up 8 percent over the last year and 15.7 percent from prices in August 2019, before the pandemic. Beef prices jumped 12.2 percent over the past year, and bacon was up 17 percent during the same period.
Experts say increasing energy costs around the world could exacerbate the problem.
“It’s this combination of things that’s beginning to get very worrying,” Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, told Bloomberg in a recent interview. “It’s not just the isolated food-price numbers, but all of them together. I don’t think anyone two or three months ago was expecting the energy prices to get this strong.”
Food price inflation is also driving up consumer expectations for future price increases.
The New York Fed’s August survey of consumer expectations showed that Americans anticipate food prices to rise by 7.9 percent in a year, higher than the overall inflation expectation of 5.2 percent.
Federal Reserve officials have repeatedly characterized the current bout of inflation as “transitory” though they have increasingly expressed concern about the risk of a de-anchoring of inflationary expectations. That’s where confidence in the “transitory” narrative falls and people start to believe and behave as if inflation will be far stickier than previously believed, impacting wage and price-setting behavior and potentially even sparking the kind of upward wage-price spiral that bedeviled the economy in the 1970s.
Biden Democrats fiddling while working families burn.
When we bought our house in Phoenix three months ago, I bit my lip because prices had already skyrocketed.
They are now up another 10-20% from July.
You’ll starve under this administration.
Food prices up
Energy prices up
Economy in turmoil
No vax, no food
No vax, no job
Food prices will be really cheap soon because the shelves will be empty, just like all self-respecting collectivist paradises.
Ping.
I rarely eat them anymore but since when did a Big Mac become a gourmet food?🙄😖🤬
Both sides of the aisle are to blame. Every RAT is to blame and 90% of the GOP eunuchs are to blame; not just illegal Bidet or whomever that moron is.
Even the god of Big Government Economist, John Maynard Keynes would be telling them
“It’s the spending stupid”
My food prices are always high, as I only buy organic veggies, grass-fed beef, pasture-raised milk and eggs. Those things remain pretty much the same at local markets. OTOH, I’m a very small person and don’t eat very much.
Tough news for people raising families though.
Our daughter and SIL bought a nice manufactured home on a decent sized plot of land about 35 miles north of Tampa 5 years ago. Now it’s worth just about double what they paid for it.
Will those who are layabouts on welfare get a boost in their free money each month?
Aug 15th 2021 NY Times
Biden Administration Prompts Largest Permanent Increase in Food Stamps
Women, children and ILLEGALS hurt most.
Strike that. ILLEGALS are fed better than most and are getting it for free!
Interesting. I wonder if your market deals with local producers.
Even as we post-----with new stimulus and Covid hardship bonuses. Did they ever lose out?
The FAO’s food price index, which measures world food commodity prices, has surged by 32.8 percent in the 12 months through September, coming in at a reading of 130 points, a level not seen since 2011. On a month-over-month basis, the index rose 1.2 percent. Accounting for the bulk of the rise in the index were higher prices of most cereals and vegetable oils. The FAO vegetable oil price index was up 60 percent in September compared to a year earlier, and 1.7 percent up from August. The cereal price measure was up 27.3 percent over the year last month, and 2 percent from August.
The Biden administration is a clown show.
They are responsible for the inflation, the ‘Rona, the border invasion and the fiasco in Afghanistan.
Among other fu@k ups.
If the U.S. government doesn’t get its shit together, the clown show will turn into a shit show.
It won’t be pretty.
5.56mm
I’m a naturalist also-I eat the same as you do-the local grocery here is a rural-only small chain store-they sell organic Texas produce and free range/grass fed meat mostly, since there are a lot of us health freaks out here who don’t want the processed, GMO or feedlot products-so the prices haven’t taken a wild turn upward.
Tourists-and townies who are Summer people with cabins here are our biggest source of income in Summer-and in Winter, Snowbirds from cold places who book a cabin or RV space for the season-from November to April. The tourists and Summer people go to the nearest large chain grocery-25 miles and in the next county to buy the inorganic, feed lot, GMO food, fast food, etc, while the Snowbirds shop for food at that same small grocery we health nuts shop at all 4-5 months they stay here-which is interesting...
The small market/grocery here does-less distance to ship, etc-fresher organic stuff, lower prices...
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