Why Food Prices Are Up 22% and Rising

Aside from the poster from Hawaii, where in the world are you folks paying similar prices to them for food?? Either you're stuck with high prices for a valid reason (like shipping it out to you) or you need me to come over & show you how to price shop around different stores o.O

In MI, some examples for regular prices I pay for staples:
Bread (Aldi) $.89 for white, $.99 for wheat, regular price (I was paying double in FL)
Milk (Aldi) $2.99 a gallon, regular price (I was paying $4.50+ in FL)
Bananas (Aldi) $.49 per lb (add 20 cents for a FL price)
Eggs (Aldi) $1.29 regular price IIR (I admit I didn't really look at this one, it was a few dimes less than the $1.59 I'm used to paying in FL)

Gas: $2.89 (we DON'T have a car, but gas is worth noting anyway)

Sale prices this week, at Meijer:
MI apples: $.64 per lb (I have never in my life seen apples this cheap, it's $1.50 a lb & up in FL)
Asparagus: $2.49 per lb (I've never seen it less than $3 on sale in FL)
Eight O'clock coffee, 12 oz: $4.99 or Maxwell 10-11 oz, $2.99 (coffee prices have been going up everywhere, so no shocker here)
Ground chuck: $3.99 per lb (about the same as what I paid in FL)
Boneless, skinless chicken thighs: $2.29 (again, about the same as I'm already used to paying)

I haven't noticed much of a price difference between Meijer and say, Family Fare grocery stores, but suffice it to say, food is significantly cheaper up here for many things.

[quote ]ori gin ally posted by: tinkortwim
Got to love Capitalism. Go capitalism!!!!


What's an avocado Going for in Moscow these days? I'm just curious.

a reply to: Nyiah
I shop at Aldi .
Eggs are $1.29 a dozen, but it wasn't that long ago I could buy them there for $.89 a dozen.

What if you like to eat food that isn't filled with poison?

I don't eat cow products so I can't relate.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Nyiah
I shop at Aldi .

Eggs are $1.29 a dozen, but it wasn't that long ago I could buy them there for $.89 a dozen.

Yeah, Aldi is pretty sweet, I used hit up a GFS for bulk stuff once in a while in FL when we could get to it, but the lone Aldi in the area was always too far out of the way, no matter how curious I was. Now that I've had a few weeks to be a regular in there, I'm really surprised they're not more widespread. Essentially a Sav-A-Lot, except much, much better quality.

89 cents a dozen, wow, that's an early 2000's price for me. I have yet to check up here, but down in FL, Walgreens puts eggs on sale for $.99 a dozen once in a while. I think it was every 6 weeks or so, then a roughly equal amount of time at regular price. They do a similar sale/regular price rotation for their milk, dropping it to around $2.99 a gallon for a bit.

a reply to: butcherguy

Off tangent a little... I like Aldi's a lot for their unbeatable prices and quality products BUT I've noticed that they're stocking a lot of name brands now instead of the store brands (which were every bit as good) and although the name brands are cheaper there than at other popular grocery stores, they are still higher than the store brand items that they stocked before.

I actually wrote to the company to ask why and was told that overwhelming customer demands drove that decision - "must haves"...I'm thinking it's more like name brands paying them more. They're becoming more and more popular and will probably go the corporate way of other stores (where the bottom line is the only thing that counts) so they can keep expanding.

The farmers aren't getting any benefit from this inflation.

futures.tradingcharts.com...

As others have posted the discount grocers are still keeping prices down on many staple goods.
I've noticed stuff like Tobacco, alcohol and "luxury" items even soda have soared.
That makes me wonder if there is some kind of government price control in place?

Some peoples "basket" apparently remains priced pretty evenly.

originally posted by: onequestion
What if you like to eat food that isn't filled with poison?

I don't eat cow products so I can't relate.

Well, if you are shopping for the expensive stuff, then I can't help you. If you aren't willing to buy the fresh food on a budget you can afford, then you are going to have to skimp and save elsewhere.

What Nyiah posted is about par for the course for what I pay where I'm at. When I buy the organic stuff, I expect it to cost what you're moaning about.

The thing that kills me is butter - $5.12/lb for the store brand. They are sold out of the 8oz imported Irish butter which sells for $2.87. It's still cheaper to buy the pound at $5.12, but it's only about a $0.30 difference now. I know why people are buying the Irish butter though - they are buying what fits their budget even if it's only half what they were getting before.

Basically, I know there is inflation. We have not changed our shopping habits. We buy the same items in the same amounts, but our grocery budget has gone from buying roughly 50 items every week to now only covering about 39 or so. The average price/item according to my calculator is now about $2.30 to $2.50 instead of the $2.00 it used to be just a year to a year and half ago. Yes, I do track these things.

When times are tough, you can bet there's something creating it. The stage is set for the next horrible travesty of our time. What happened with Germany? SSDD.

Remember when your father told you that the economy goes in cycles and you just need to weather the bad times? Well those times are here again. They won't let loose of your gonad until you demand that they do so. They will take and take until there is nothing left. How much humanity takes is yet to be seen. I've seen people taken to concentration camps who thought things were getting better. We all know how that turned out.

I guess we'll see that again but look at the bright side; things will chance for the better after all the death and destruction.



I know I see all the bad in the world a little too much. I need you to offset that with good. It's easy to see the bad when the bad outweighs the good. Nothing changes without discussion or without action.

a reply to: LOSTinAMERICA

My grandfather used to have a quasi-fatalistic attitude about economic cycles. His philosophy was that you always need a good Depression now and again to kill off the "dead wood," but then, he had lived through the last one.



Part of our problem is that when we had the crash, we didn't let it fall. We were too pain adverse to let economics take their course, so we propped things up. Now we have a massive government bubble propping up massive bubbles in secondary education (college loans), health care, still in housing. When one or all of those bubbles pop ... it's going to hurt much worse than it might have had we just let the crash happen, and for all of you reading this, you're just getting older with less and less time to live through the harsh process of recovery. And the more we meddle and try to make recovery less painful ... the longer it will take.

a reply to: EveStreet

I have noticed the name brands showing up there too.
I like the guarantee. Your money back and replace the product if you bring back the unused portion.

a reply to: ketsuko

I'm not as ruthless as that and feel that all of humanity has worth. You create avenues for people who are out of work and the situation fixes itself. The problem with that is the rich make it almost impossible to compete. When a handful of people hold most of the wealth, there's a problem. They can lobby the government to change laws to make it easier to put you out of business. You can vote but you cannot lobby. Who are they going to side with?

Then you have a government that wants open borders so businesses have cheap labor. Well where do us common folks draw the line on what a fair days work for a fair days pay is? You won't work for 8 bucks an hour? This south american without a green card will work for less than that. Economics isn't all cut and dry. There's a human factor that needs to be tallied. You think Detroit is filled with lazy people and it progressed the way it did because of that? I lived there when it was beautiful and the utopia of the nation.

You fall within the game. I want to change the game.

originally posted by: EvilBat
noticed this today and it litterly happened with in the past few days
$5 plus for a gallon of milk
$3.89 for no name white bread
$4.89 for wheat bread ( loaf is now cut in half )
now to get halfway ok prices I must go 30 mile round trip,
what I save in groceries feels like i just spend in gas

Those are insane prices. I live in a small town and our white bread is $2.00/loaf, wheat $2.79. Milk is on sale every Tuesday 2/$7.00 so of course I buy on Tuesdays. I try to buy items only on sale and go to 'Big Town' - 35 miles away once a month or once every two months. Once a person starts stocking up and gets into a cycle, it is a LOT easier. I by coffee - 3 cans every other time I go to Big town when it is around $5-$7.00 but usually around $6.00. So I always have enough for around 2.5 years. Every year or so the price of coffee skyrockets and I quit buying it. I have done this for years. I enjoy my coffee all year long at a cheaper price. I want to say something else about buying coffee. Check the ounces, sometimes the cans are the same but less coffee in it......or it's the super mild. Don't be afraid to open a pallet or ask for help on what you really want. I swear, the local grocery store will put their coffee on sale but they keep wrapped the fuller cans and better flavors, although I don't buy from them as a rule because even on sale their prices are $2-$5.00 more per can.

It's better to try and buy once a month from a cheaper store further away. I can save the increase in gas usage with the purchase of sometimes one item, like dogfood.

a reply to: LOSTinAMERICA

Four words - Too big to fail.

No business is too big to fail, and when it gets too big to fail, that's when it most needs to fail. Think of the an economy like a forest. The very biggest companies and corporations are like the very tallest trees, and they choke out all the smaller trees underneath them and prevent competition from younger more viable trees. Now, when a large tree is in the prime of its life, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when the big tree is nearing the end of its life, isn't it better for it to topple and allow the younger saplings to have a chance to reach to fill the space it leaves, even though many forest creatures have to find a new tree to live in or feed off of?

Inflation and the impending increase in minimum wage.

Butter almost ALWAYS goes on sale before thanksgiving and Christmas baking seasons. It's a good time to stock up if you can.

a reply to: ketsuko

That and write some monopoly laws that protect the competitors. Antitrust laws are written to protect the consumer, not competition. When one big conglomerate owns everything everywhere, we get screwed. The cornered the market and can dictate the price. I hope they don't corner the market on drinking water.

originally posted by: aboutface
As far as I am concerned, food prices always rise at this time of the year. I've learned to follow the sales, paper products low in July&Aug, cereals low in Aug, etc. Companies get rid of built up stock supplies then the prices rise. Gas prices will rise again this week too.

Are you not aware that everything is going up and it does not matter what time of the year it is anymore? Sure you might find some sales as you say but hey did you notice the boxes are getting smaller the toilet paper rolls are fluffed up to make them larger but you get less, the pop cans are so thin that they almost collapse in your hand a loaf of bread is only half of its former glory and has the consistency and taste of cardboard and on and on. Food is getting less nutritious and boxes crush in your hands and the sizes are conspicuously smaller and smaller and smaller each time you buy them.

a reply to: whatnext21

Uh huh, I noticed it and complained loudly about four years ago about those very points. And I don't mean to sound smug, because I'm not. Perhaps because I am on a low fixed income I have been making gradual adjustments along the way, such as eating meat less frequently and adding legumes to my menu. My diet has changed as a result of GMOs and prices, but I have enough stored up that I can now afford to eat simply for quite a while without having to go to the store. Last week coffee was priced just like it was four years ago, so I bought a ten-month's supply.