Consumer prices for food rose 9.4% in April compared with a year earlier, the biggest gain since 1981.

By BLOOMBERG

By Amy Yee and Tarso Veloso Ribeiro | Bloomberg

With a gallon of milk up about 25% since before the pandemic, and retail bacon 35% higher, it’s hard to imagine how US food inflation could get any worse. But evidence suggests that even higher prices are on the horizon.

Consumers have actually been shielded so far from the full brunt of soaring expenses that are facing producers, distributors and small businesses like restaurants. But they can only hold back for so much longer.

Take the case of Jeff Good, who co-founded three restaurants in Jackson, Mississippi. Around 18 months ago, a 40-pound box of chicken wings cost him about $85. Now, it can go as high as roughly $150. Expenses for cooking oil and flour have nearly doubled in the past five months, he said. But it’s not just ingredient prices going up. He’s paying more for labor and services, too. Even the company that maintains his air conditioners has tacked on a $40 fuel charge per visit. To cope, he’s raised menu prices.

A 15-piece order of chicken wings, a signature dish at his Sal and Mookie’s pizzeria, went for $13.95 before Covid hit. Now, wing costs can vary so much they’re labeled at “market price,” like some restaurants do with lobster. At peaks, the menu price can be be about $27.95 — but that represents a barely-there margin — and Good estimates the “real cost” is closer to about $34. He’s trying to decide whether to keep raising prices or take wings off the menu.

“We have never, ever seen anything like what we’re seeing right now,” said Good, who opened his restaurants nearly 30 years ago.

The difference between prices received by producers for their goods and those paid by everyday customers at cash registers can be seen by comparing the producer and consumer price indices.

The CPI, a benchmark for gauging inflation cited in headlines and by economists, has been surging. Consumer prices for food rose 9.4% in April compared with a year earlier, the biggest gain since 1981, government data showed this month. There were record increases for chicken, fresh seafood and baby food.

But many food costs measured in the PPI have been accelerating faster than the CPI rate. In April, average wholesale food prices in the index jumped 18% from a year earlier, according to government data released May 12. It was the largest 12-month increase in nearly five decades. Eggs surged 220%, butter jumped 51%, fats and oils were up 41%, and flour 40%, the National Restaurant Association said.

The data suggest that pent-up inflation in the production and distribution pipeline will continue to filter through to consumer prices.

“Businesses will do as much as they can to squeeze margins and not pass along higher costs from producers if they see chances that prices will soon reverse,” said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist for financial services group StoneX. “However, they will eventually need to pass those price hikes along.”…….more here

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