2022 Starts With Big Increase in Retail Food Prices

Food prices have been on the rise at your local grocery store, with the biggest increase in beef.

The most recent Consumer Price Index shows beef prices in January finally declined. All other food prices increased quite a bit, pushing overall grocery prices up 1.2% on the month. A USDA Economist says the historical average annual increase for food prices is 2% for the whole year.

“So an increase of 1.2% between two months is going to be very large in terms of what we would expect food price inflation to be.”

Right now, all grocery store food prices are more than 7% higher compared to January of last year.

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USDA: Food prices to only rise 1.5-2.5% after two years of 3.5% increase