My burger cost went up 30 cents a lb.

Friday when I went to my local Butcher, he apologized and told me he had to raise it 30 cents to $2.80 a lb. for his locally raised and processed on site 80-20 blend. This of course will have to be passed on! Folks hold on to your hats, I believe inflation of the kind we haven't seen in a long time is about to bite the hell out of us...Your take?

I've been reading about the impending huge boost in food prices for a while now -- all of it related to the cost of fuel and to weather conditions.

the cost of gas here has risen over a buck a gallon since the first of the year and expects to get to $5 by summer.  the cost of everything will go up.

Hello all ,
I believe its partially a scam by the businesses toraise prices , this is the perfect opportunity with all the problems in the Mid East . Shop around ,  baby
Benzee

Exactly, shop around.... 80/20 at Fred Meyer...$3.99lb!
Ground pork has been .99lb for ever... $1.99 yesterday.
 Safeway has 80/20 for $1.99... not on sale.
The speculators will keep the prices rising and keep us all in the poor house while corp profits soar.
Diesel is up over .25 gal this week, pushing $4.00gal

CTF... Have you had to raise your prices recently?
I just did a small bump last week, I'm afraid to raise them to where they should really be for fear of running off the customers I do have that can still afford to eat lunch out on a regular basis.

I don't know this for a fact, but I would imagine the entire point is that he buys his burger from the local butcher as opposed to a chain grocery store where it is mass-produced. I could be wrong. Quality, however, is often a HUGE factor in pricing, and from what I've seen here, I would imagine he's pretty darn big on quality.
 
Prices are definitely going up...it's already started, and it's going to continue. It's the price we pay for Middle East countries such as Egypt and Libya to fight for their freedom from dictatorship. Yeah, it sucks...but then I count myself lucky to live in a country where I'm allowed to complain about things like prices. And I wouldn't have much of an issue paying a little more for a burger if I knew that the meat came from a local butcher who uses locally raised meat.

chewingthefat


I believe inflation of the kind we haven't seen in a long time is about to bite the hell out of us...Your take?

 
Since food and energy prices are excluded from the "core inflation" figures and those are the 2 things zooming upwards at the moment, the government will continue to say there is no inflation and act accordingly.
 
I am and have been prepared for inflation for some time--probably too long.  I have skewed my investment portfolio (source of retirement income) toward inflation indexed bonds, commodities and precious metals and other things that normally do well in inflationary times.  I actually think "stagflation", something those of you too young to recall the 1970s may not recall, is the biggest risk.

felix4067


I don't know this for a fact, but I would imagine the entire point is that he buys his burger from the local butcher as opposed to a chain grocery store where it is mass-produced. I could be wrong. 

 
You probably are.  Food prices are climbing all over the world.  Longer term, this is because the ranks of the middle class are growing in the third world and one of the first things people demand as their incomes rise is better (and more) food, especially meat.  Shorter term though, there have been a series of crop disasters in grain producing regions, especially Russia and Australia, that have raised the price of grain which is used to feed and fatten cattle.  I recently read that the price of corn for animal feed is up 79%.  Hence a rise in beef (and other meat) prices.  This is not simply a phenomenon of local and "organic" producers. It's world-wide.  In fact, some people have blamed some of the recent unrest in the middle east on skyrocketing food prices.  But chain groceries certainly aren't immune although they can disguise it to some degree by putting some products on sale and jacking up the prices of others.
 
See:  http://www.bloomberg.com/...ts-supply-outlook.html
 

Benzee
 
I believe its partially a scam by the businesses toraise prices , this is the perfect opportunity with all the problems in the Mid East . Shop around ,  baby 
Benzee 

 
 
No scam.  See above.

I totally believe some businesses will take advantage of rising prices, and impose their own inflation rates for pure profit. Its an age old business move, and a no brainer. Just gotta know and trust your vendors. We all know prices are rising in everything.

The price of milk, at our nearest supermarket, has raised sixty cents a gallon in past month.  Our family consumes six gallons a week so the food budget now has to allow $24.00 a week just for milk!

Greymo


The price of milk, at our nearest supermarket, has raised sixty cents a gallon in past month.  Our family consumes six gallons a week so the food budget now has to allow $24.00 a week just for milk!

 
I am glad that milk is not a beverage that I consume.  I made the unfortunate mistake of visiting a friend of mine about 25 years ago who owned a dairy during July.  I was in the barn while they were milking and flies were everywhere.  I made the mistake of standing behind a huge cow and she took an enormous poop and it splattered all over me.  No milk since then.
 
Since then my beverages have been Diet Cok and liquor.
 
Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Hello all ,
Any link  to a Bloomburgsite I will do without .
Bermuda Bloomy has been screwing with the public service employees for yrs now in the Big Apple .
I would not be surprised if he has a hand in this also , after all he has the media in his back pocket
Benzee

chefbuba


CTF... Have you had to raise your prices recently?
I just did a small bump last week, I'm afraid to raise them to where they should really be for fear of running off the customers I do have that can still afford to eat lunch out on a regular basis.

I'm getting ready to raise them a bunch, got to chef, haven't raised them for some time, pork is skyrocketing, as is beef, Lord everything is. A vicious cycle, but no other options available.
Yesterday we got $205.00 in coupons! Yeow!

Benzee


Hello all ,
Any link  to a Bloomburgsite I will do without .
Bermuda Bloomy has been screwing with the public service employees for yrs now in the Big Apple .
I would not be surprised if he has a hand in this also , after all he has the media in his back pocket
Benzee

 
Then Google the matter for yourself unless you simply prefer not to understand what is happening.  Just about every newspaper has carried stories on what is happening to food prices.
 
Do you seriously think Mike Bloomberg is responsible for the rising cost of food in Syria or Indonesia?  These are issues of the world-wide demand for food and world grain prices.  Cows (and pigs and chickens), whether they are intended for hamburger or milk production, eat grain that is now approaching double its former prices and that is not Mike Bloomberg's fault.  It's the fault of the Russian drought, the Australian floods (and cyclone) and less than ideal North American weather.

But nothing to do with ethanol production.

annpeeples

We all know prices are rising in everything. 

 
Not everything.  Prices of some manufactured goods are still falling.  But what is definitely rising at the moment are the prices of commodities from oil to cotton to grain. Also rising is the cost of third world labor.  The Chinese factories that make electronics have had to substantially raise wages, partly because China is running out of people willing to work for peanuts and partly because food prices are going up faster in China than here.
 
On the other hand, if you want a flat panel TV, it'll likely still be cheaper next year (though not as much cheaper as it would have been a few years ago).

MiamiDon


But nothing to do with ethanol production.

 
Some, sure.  The US produces just over 40% of the world's corn crop and 80% of that went into livestock feed as recently as 2000 ( http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropmajor.html ).  So diverting large portions of it to ethanol exacerbates the grain shortage but it doesn't do so that much more this year than last so it doesn't explain the sudden rise in prices now.  What does, as I've said, is failure of this year's crops in other major grain exporters.

Prices of some manufactured goods are still falling.

 
Yes, but the price to get them to you is now factored in.  YOur freight price has gone up.  The cost of materials to make those goods and the price to get those materials to the manufacturer are also rising. Again, the price will go up.
 
Trickle down?  No, trickle up.
 
Some are benefiting from the rise in the price of a gallon.
 
My business waste company that drives down my alley to pick up everyone's refuse has installed a $15 fuel surcharge to each and every customer on the route for every trip it makes.
 
If there are 100 customers on that route they are getting a $1500 increase in their pocket for the same trip down the alley and the same tank of gas.
 
Many of the companies I deal with have added an 8% increase for cost of materials.  It's the fuel, not the materials that is causing this.

mar52

Prices of some manufactured goods are still falling.

The cost of materials to make those goods and the price to get those materials to the manufacturer are also rising. Again, the price will go up. 

 
Only if the price of materials is a major factor in the final price of the product.   For some products, it isn't.  And, believe it or not, there are some products where the manufacturer can still save labor costs by shifting production to a lower-labor-cost market (Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia) and compensate for rising materials cost.
 
In the case of TV sets, prices are still falling because of a glut of LCD screens (the Japanese and Korean manufacturers simply installed too much capacity) and ever better production efficiency.
 
But you are right that such situations and the products they affect are getting rarer.