If trips to the grocery store have stung more recently, it’s not your imagination: Inflation is the highest it has been in three years.
The consumer price index hit 4.2 percent in May, up from 3.8 percent in April, according to fresh inflation data out Wednesday. Prices have soared in particular on a lot of things Americans buy every day, including coffee, lettuce and more. While the war in Iran has fueled most of the run-up in prices, tariffs and drought conditions also have been playing a role.
“It’s kind of the perfect storm,” said Dawn Thilmany, a professor of agricultural economics at Colorado State University, about all the factors contributing to rising food costs.
Soaring fuel prices have pushed up the cost to transport fresh produce and beef, which must be shipped in refrigerated trucks that tend to be less fuel-efficient.
“So you’re not only paying energy to ship it, you’re paying energy to keep it cool,” Thilmany said.
In May, some of the bigger price increases came in the categories of fresh sweet rolls, coffee cakes, doughnuts, biscuits and muffins. Prices also went up for both ham and eggs, compared with April.
Lettuce saw one of the biggest jumps in prices, up 16 percent in May compared with April and up 24 percent from a year ago. Like tomatoes, much of the lettuce Americans eat in winter is grown outside the United States. While there are a handful of places in the United States that lettuce can be grown close to year-round — including in parts of California and Arizona — those areas have also been dealing with water deficits, Thilmany said.
Some products, such as tomatoes imported from Mexico — even those that are part of U.S. retailers’ supply chains — continue to be pricey because they are subject to tariffs of about 17 percent, after President Donald Trump last year canceled an agreement that had stabilized the market.
Tomato prices fell slightly by 6 percent from April, but they are up 32 percent in May compared with last year.
Overall, all fresh fruits and vegetables were up 6 percent in May from a year ago.
Beef prices were down slightly in May compared with April but up 13 percent from last year, after 24 months of record demand for quality protein; some ranchers are struggling to keep up with demand after depopulating their herds in the last two years. Producers in some parts of the United States are also grappling with poor grass health due to drought, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said recently.
High coffee prices are almost entirely the result of tariffs, Thilmany said, because the United States cannot grow its own coffee beans, with the exception of the Kona districts in Hawaii.
It is unclear when relief could come. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for shipping, continues to drive up oil prices, and the United States and Iran do not appear to be any closer to achieving a peace deal than they were a month ago, despite Trump’s assurances.
The post Prices are soaring on these everyday grocery items, driving up inflation appeared first on Washington Post.
