Grocery Store Increase

Food prices might be going up, but... Before we get into actual numbers, let's do the math. Take 1.5% of one dollar. If you remember from grades three, that turns out to be 1 1/2 cents. Make that $.15 on a $10 buy. Now let's put that into perspective for today. If you buy roughly the same foods in the same amounts this year compared to last. chances are your grocery bill this year will be higher, but you may not notice it because the increase will likely be very small. Agriculture Department economist Gianna Short is forecasting grocery store food to increase "in a range between half and one and a half percent." And that's been the forecast for the last four months. But we may notice some bigger price movement for some products, if what happened in May is any indication, for example, of the major food categories last month, "eggs experienced the largest percentage price drop", almost 5 percent compared to April. Now. Earlier this year, USDA was forecasting egg prices to drop 2 to 3 percent this year, but "we now expect to retail egg prices to decrease between 6 and 7 percent." On the other side, pork prices last month, even with more production, went up almost two and a half percent from April due mostly to strong consumer demand.

But even with recent price hikes, Gianna Short expects pork prices for all of this year to average about the same as last year.