Food Price Increases Expected To Slow

We saw a sizable hike in grocery store food prices last month.  The Consumer Price Index showing a 0.4% increase on average, while food prices are 0.5% higher than they were this time last year.  Annemarie Kuhns, economist with the USDA says prices in April went up for several major products.

“For instance, fish and seafood prices on average rose 1.8%, egg prices we paid 6.2% more from March to April, and fresh fruit prices, rose 1.9%.”

In addition, beef prices climbed 1.7%.  But Kuhns pointed out that the news is not all bad for consumers.  She said several categories declined, from March to April, including pork, fresh vegetables, sugars and sweets, bread and bakery products, lunch meats, and non-alcoholic beverages.

“But some of these increases just outweighed the declines that we did see.”

For all of 2018, Kuhns expects super market food prices to average from 0.5% to maybe 1.5% higher than last year.

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