Food Prices Expected To Reamin Flat For The Remainder Of 2018

So far this year, food prices at the grocery store have gone up 0.4%.

"Which puts us relatively in line with our forecast for 2018," said USDA  Economist Annmarie Kuhns.

"We're expecting grocery prices to remain unchanged to increases by as much as 1%," Kuhns added.

Last year, and the year before, food prices actually dropped from the previous year, which is a rarity.  Now, the low-end of that forecast range is 0%, but it would take a massive decline in prices for the next three months to come down to a 0%.

Why?

"Any factor that impacts an earlier stage of the production process for a retail food, such as a price of a farm commodity, the price for food processing," said Kuhns.  "That all takes time to pass through to the retail level."

In fact, anywhere from one month to ten months, depending on the food.  And there's just not enough time this year to send food prices very far off the general forecast.

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