No, It’s Not Your Imagination — Food Prices Are Sky High

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No, It’s Not Your Imagination — Food Prices Are Sky High

(ASHEVILLE) If you find yourself suffering from sticker shock in the grocery aisle, it’s not your imagination. A confluence of factors, environmental and otherwise, is driving up prices for consumers.

Drought in California, where virtually all U.S. almonds and the majority of broccoli, garlic and spinach is grown, is tinkering with produce prices. Egg prices are climbing. Not even orange juice is safe, with a citrus greening disease causing bitter fruit and low production.

Even coffee is stressed, according to Waking Life Espresso cafe owner Jared Rutledge, who said a devastating fungus called coffee leaf rust is causing bean prices to rise.

Clearly the breakfast table is suffering, though not on the bacon front; pork prices are falling, one of the few sectors where there’s good news.

“There have been different things in different industries, but I think when you put it all together, it means overall, what people are spending on groceries has increased,” said Leah McGrath, Ingles dietitian.

Eggs in particular have lately been bedeviling consumers. Avian flu has decimated almost 10 percent of the country’s population of laying hens, with wholesale prices reaching record levels on the national market, according to local egg farmer Mike Brown of Farside Farms.

“About six weeks ago, eggs started going up five to six cents an egg a day, going as far as $2.50 a dozen wholesale — the highest it’s ever been,” Brown said.

Avian influenza, also known as the bird flu, is a virus that infects wild birds and domestic poultry, including chickens and turkeys. The most devastating form of the flu, HPAI, is a merciless and swift bird killer.

“When you have one sick chicken, you’re out of business,” Brown said. “You lose them all.”

So far, the flu has resulted in the deaths of nearly 50 million birds, largely in the Northwest and Midwest.

North Carolina is taking preventative measures to keep the disease from infiltrating the state, canceling poultry shows and disallowing fowl at state fairs after Aug. 1.

Even though the spread of the flu is slowing, eggs are still pricy as farmers try to recover. And even if prices return to normal this summer, there could be another epidemic as soon as cooler weather spurs migratory movements of wild birds, spreading disease again.

For now, poultry farmers are in rebuilding mode, Brown said. “It will take six months minimum to get those facilities back into production,” he said.

It’s not just eggs that have consumers dropping extra cash at the store. Wholesale and retail beef is also at record highs.

“The beef cattle markets have soared due to a shortage of cattle,” Brown said. “They’re a long process; you can’t build them back overnight.”

Cattle inventory is down because the expense of raising, slaughtering and selling steers for meat at market is high, while the return is basically equivalent to what a farmer might fetch selling cattle in the stockyard.

“It’s a no-brainer,” Brown said. “You can just collect your check and go about your business.”

Eating their egg prices

Retail food operations rarely have the same options as wholesalers. At least two local bakers say they’re eating the rising cost of one of their most important commodities.

Karen Donatelli of Karen Donatelli Cake Designs is accustomed to fluctuations in cost, she said.

“We had heavy cream not long ago, and about four or five months ago, the butter prices were going through the roof,” she said.

But changing menu prices to reflect a volatile market is simply not feasible. Donatelli raised her prices shortly after the holidays, and doesn’t plan to do it again any time soon.

“I feel like we’re going to try to weather the storm,” she said. “Sometimes prices do come back down, and we’ll be right at where we’re supposed to be.”

At True Confections in the Grove Arcade, Carole Miller has seen prices for eggs soar more than 50 percent, climbing from $24 to $37 a case in one week….more here

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No, It’s Not Your Imagination — Food Prices Are Sky High