Think you’re paying too much for food now? You’re going to pay more in 2008 according to Reuters.
“There’s going to be real food inflation in this country,” C. Larry Pope, president and chief executive of U.S. beef processor Smithfield Foods Inc., said at the U.S. Agriculture Department’s annual outlook conference.
Prices of grain futures have surged lately. For example, wheat futures have more than doubled on the Chicago Board of Trade over the last 12 months. Pope said meat shoppers eventually will pay for the rally because farmers who raise livestock cannot absorb the sharp escalation in feed costs.
Pope said the rip-roaring rallies in corn, soybeans and wheat would be good for farmers, but are “scary” for companies like Smithfield and the rest of the livestock industry.
“I think we need to tell the American consumer that things are going up,” he said in a speech. “We’re seeing cost increases that we’ve never seen in our business.”
Hasn’t someone figured out how to feed the damn cows grass again? Wasn’t Michael Pollan in charge of that?
Food industry says prices headed up again in ’08 [Reuters]
(Photo:amyadoysie)
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@redkamel: Please say you know the movie Soylant Green?
Al Gore has backed away from supporting Ethanol. GWB is making a big push for it. The problem is that the transport costs, energy to create it, amount of corn, needed, etc. simply don’t add up compared to the energy derived. Of course the politicians want corn based ethanol because they score political points with a huge swath of the midwest. Most are moving towards bio-diesel, electric, or switchgrass based ethanol as it has better overall efficiency
One of the biggest problems with ethanol is that were still driving everywhere and in gas guzzling cars, were not cutting consumption. Then there is that whole quotient that corn really isn’t a good fuel stock.
Right now a couple of the ethanol companies are in a race to see who can get cellulose ethanol into full production first. There are areas they can grow grass for ethanol that you can’t grow corn. The whole quotient of energy in vs. energy out in cellulose is much better than corn. But I digress. I know way too much about this living in the Midwest and I did an extensive paper on this last year.
We are tripling our garden this year with the intent of freezing & preserving much of it for the winter on top of being a food source for the summer. We also bought 75# of flour since it is still cheap. We have cut back on our meat consumption quite a bit and are relying more on veggies. It will be interesting to see where prices are at when the farmers market opens back up in a few months.
@Andon: Dead Burnt Lesbians.
Maybe this will encourage us to get rid of farm subsidies?
Then again, probably not, although we can hope.
Maybe the cause is converting corn to ethanol for cars. The government has shifted the cost of gas to the cost of food. They think people are too stupid to understand this. Looks like they were right. Remember, vote republican. Four more years
this is old news…cmon consumerist
You know, my mother came back from a supermarket the other day and she expressed her utter shock at how much prices rose. She went about ranting, comparing today’s prices with the prices that she used to see in the late 80′s. Quite interesting.
To be fair, my mom’s the main breadwinner in our house (after dad retired early due to Parkinsons Disease) and the last time she shopped regularly is in the late 80′s/early 90′s.
Yeah, things are getting expensive. You know it’s really getting out of hand when the things you were able to buy for $5-6 eight years ago cost $10-11 now.
This is what happens when you try to turn your food supply (corn) into fuel (ethanol). And turning corn into ethanol is so terribly inefficient, didn’t they figure out that it was a net _loss_ of energy?
@catnapped: Well if that keeps happening they will stop ordering so much, and the producers will stop raising so much. Consumption will fall. Seems like a good thing considering the environmental effects of producing cheap meat.
The franchise supermarkets in the area have been jacking up prices every week. However, for reasons I have yet to figure out, the small, independent ethnic markets in the area have kept their prices reasonable. Example: my big chain grocery store sells onions for $1.69/lb., the independent Asian market only a block away sells the same onions for $0.59 cents/lb!
@Sherryness: pipelines, or plants?
@johnva:
I for one would love to eat more organic food since it has no chemicals in it. The problem is that Im not a health nut. Maybe it is because of my location but if I want organic bread there is no white bread, if I want pasta there is no regular durum pasta only nasty whole wheat pasta. I can forget about finding regular potato chips, all they have is weird blue potato, soy crisps, and veggie chips. Frozen pizza? nope, just whole wheat crust with soy cheese and fake pepperoni. Where is the normal GOOD organic food.
@Gorky: Whole Foods and/or Trader Joe’s has all of those items you just mentioned.
@youbastid:
Dont have either of those places near Harrisburg, Pa
@HooFoot:
You wrote: Example: my big chain grocery store sells onions for $1.69/lb., the independent Asian market only a block away sells the same onions for $0.59 cents/lb!
Yes! Why is that? I recently had to stop eating wheat altogether, and when I go for rice flour, I just go to the Korean market down the street. It costs a small fraction of what the same stuff at the grocery store costs. Same product, size, manufacturer, etc. So now I buy my vegetables & stuff there, or at the Mexican Fruiteria. Same brands and everything.
Just another reason to scrutinize local grocery sale fliers, and combine those sales with manufacturers’ coupons for maximum savings. It seems like an ordeal at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really easy. Check [www.thegrocerygame.com] and see if they have store “lists” for your area–they do the heavy lifting for you, for a very small subscription fee.
I haven’t paid more than 50% of shelf price for groceries in a couple of years, now, and average about 65% savings at the register most of the time.
Ha! Coupons, “Grocery Games,” and all that crap only work if you buy convenience products! Maybe you save $0.20 on the occasional roll of TP (just go to Sam’s). Buy fresh, cook fresh, and you’ll eat healthful foods much cheaper. You have no right to complain that a TV dinner doubles in price, because even at the original price it wasn’t worth it.
@balthisar: Wrong. I have a drawer full of totally free Crest, Colgate, Aquafresh, and Edge shave gel, all from coupons and grocery games. I get 24 packs of Cottonelle for as low as $1.50. Tide detergent for $1. I get cheap cheese, cooking oil, dairy, and breakfast cereal. All far less than Sam’s or Costco. Not just convenience items by a long shot. All for a $1.50 investment in a Sunday paper and about 10 minutes worth of clippin’.
The only thing left to do, is to eat children and the elderly.
There is certainly no shortage of those running around. We could probably just import them and that way the righties won’t be all in a tizzy about chowing down on little white babies. We already know that lefties hate all life and will eat them as long as they aren’t a cow or god forbid veal.
I know Consumerist doesn’t like to encourage naked cynicism in the general public, but I can’t shake the feeling that Mr. Beef Processor was angling for some kind of federal subsidy.
I mean, he didn’t outright ASK for a hand-out, but I can’t think why the Agricultural Department has things like “outlook conferences” unless it’s to figure out who’s next in line for some government cash and how much they’ll need.
Grocery prices really have gone through the roof. It’s very rare for me to be able to spend less than $35 at the store – and that’s by buying just a few things, buying things on sale, etc. Not so long ago if I spent $35 on groceries, it would mean I was really stocking up!
I can’t say I’m complaining. After all those years of helping my dad plant a wheat crop, getting good rain and then after we paid the harvester, the storage fee, the transportation and all the other associated bullshit thrust upon farmers by the middlemen we were lucky to get a month’s wages out of a harvest.
And stop bitching about the farm subsidies. None of us are driving $60,000 pickup trucks and eating filet mignon at every meal because of farm subsidies. They’re barely enough to buy a load of Diesel and a load of seed. Heck, my dad have gotten plenty of money from disaster and regular farm payments and we have no immediate plans to quit our full-time jobs.
Not only that, but we have to compete on a GLOBAL scale. The US is the largest IMPORTER of food in the world and we have to compete with other nations that give their farmers even MORE money and have a lower valued currency.
It seems like it is the time to making Soylent Green.
@LionelEHutz: That should have read: It seems like it is time to start making Soylent Green. I forgot to delete the “the”. Need. More. Coffee.