Currently browsing posts about: Price-of-food

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has released its annual report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI).

From the press release

The good news

Global hunger declined for a third consecutive year in 2025, demonstrating that progress is possible.

The not-so-good news

However, the improvements remain fragile, unevenly distributed and insufficient to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The report emphasizes cost issues

Healthy diets are essential to achieving SDG 2, but remain economically out of reach for large segments of the global population. In the context of persistent cost-of-living pressures, reducing the cost of a healthy diet (CoHD) is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to enhance diet quality, and thus improve nutrition, health and development outcomes.

The high costs come from what happens after foods are produced

Post-farmgate activities account for 70 to 75 percent of what consumers pay, with up to 40 percent of value chain costs accumulating in midstream processing, logistics and wholesale. Improving efficiency at these stages is essential for lowering the prices of perishable foods that compose
healthy diets.

As for what to do

Public spending is most effective when directed towards the higher-cost food groups. Broad fiscal support to already low-cost staples generates limited improvements in overall dietary affordability.

Comment

We still have lots of work to do.

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If you, as I am, are shocked by the cost of groceries, we now have the data.  The Economist has been tracking food prices, in this case for a Fourth of July barbecue.

Its “unappetizing conclusion”—

Across the 25 cities in our sample, the basket now costs an average of $81, 12% more than a year ago, the fastest annual increase in a decade …. That far outpaced grocery-price inflation of less than 3%, reflecting the unusually sharp increases in several items in our barbecue basket…Over the past five years the basket has risen in price by over 40%, roughly twice as fast as median pay across the cities surveyed. The typical worker must now labour 16 minutes longer than in 2020 to afford the spread.

The smallest rises have been in pototoes, with potato crisps (chips), beer, pork sausage, and bread also not going up by much.

The sharpest rises are seen for steak, Coca-Cola (really?), and ground beef.

I wish The Economist would do this for a lot more foods.

Lettuce isn’t doing too badly.  Salads everyone?

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The USDA published occasional “charts of note.”  I thought this one was especially useful.

The chart gives an estimate of total spending on food in the U.S.—an astonishing $2.51 trillion in 2025.

• $1.4 trillion goes for food away from home.
• $1.1 trillion goes for food at home.

The data are from USDA’s Food Expenditure Series, June 2026.

Despite everything that is cutting into food sales—concerns about ultra-processed foods, GLP-1 drugs, inflation—spending on food has risen steadily since 1997, except during the COVID-19 pandemic.

So has the proportion spent on food prepared outside the home.   Home cooking holds steady, but isn’t keeping up.

“Eat real food” means it has to be cooked, and it’s likely to be a lot healthier if cooked at home.

I learned to cook in 8th grade home economics.  We could use some of that now.

I saw this on AgWeb:

I knew this came from USDA’s Food Dollar series, which reports measurements of where the food dollar goes in the chain of production.

The USDA also illustrates the dollar in reports.  The most recent, with figures from 2023, is here.

These USDA illustrations used to be easier to read, so I like the way AgWeb shows the current data.

But you get the idea: farmers don’t get much.  The real money in food is in processing, retail, and service.

Note the incentive in processing.

No wonder the number of farms continues to decline.

What the Farm Bill (an apparently hopeless cause at the moment) really needs to do is to start from scratch and do two things: promote smaller scale organic and regenerative farming that will protect soil, mitigate climate change, and repopulate the Midwest, and make sure those farmers make an adequate living.

Take a look at this new report:

I love the report’s quick summary:

Mostly, this report looks at additives.  The authors looked at 800 products.

Their basic finding: the cheaper the price, the greater the number of additives.

The report calls for a collection of policy interventions to improve standards for additives in foods.

I hope RFK Jr reads this report.

Note: Yuka has a vested interest in getting you to use its app to check the additives in the foods you buy.

If you think food prices are increasing, you are right.

I’ve been sent an analysis from Trace One.

Trace One says “grocery prices rose 0.7% in December, the largest one-month increase since October 2022—underscoring how food costs remain a major pain point for households even as broader inflation cools.”

Some of its findings:

• Grocery inflation has outpaced broader inflation since the pandemic began.
• Beef products have seen the sharpest price increases.
• Average household grocery spending is nearing $700 per month nationally.

Comment

I’m kind of shocked by what food is costing these days.  In writing What to Eat Now, I could see that prices doubled since I wrote What to Eat in 2006.  BPut now they’ve gone up even more.  This is fine if income is going up too.

But what if it’s not?

And what if SNAP benefits are cut?

These are tough times.

Here’s the trend.

At issue is what’s happening now.

The White House says: Americans Are Paying Less This Thanksgiving.

President Donald J. Trump promised to crush inflation and lower prices — and he’s delivering this Thanksgiving, with the classic holiday feast about 3% cheaper than last year, according to a brand new report. Americans are seeing across-the-board price declines for the holiday staples, with dinner rolls down 22%, frozen vegetables down 15%, and items like turkeys, stuffing, gravy mix, fresh cranberries, and pumpkin pies all costing less.

It’s proof that under President Trump’s leadership, America is winning the war on high prices — even as Democrats grind the country to a halt with their deranged, reckless government shutdown.

Alas, not everyone sees it this way.

At a glance across the country: Meatpacking plants closed at an unprecedented rate this year, accelerated by a number of factors such as rising livestock costs, workforce shortages, food safety violations and foodborne illnesses, and ongoing industry consolidation.

Here are some examples: of these and others:

• Tyson closes 3 meat plants, lays off 1K workers The food giant plans to shutter its 328,000-square-foot facility in Emporia, Kansas, as well as two cheesesteak factories in Philadelphia.
• Cargill cuts 5% of global workforce after profits decline The move, which will affect approximately 8,000 jobs, comes as the world’s largest private company plans to streamline operations in the face of lower crop prices and challenges in beef.
• Deere lays off more workers at Iowa tractor plant The cuts add to the thousands of jobs eliminated this year as the equipment maker reigns in production to offset a slowdown in demand.
• Butterball to shutter Arkansas turkey plant, lay off 180 workers: The closure adds to a wave of layoffs in the agriculture industry as weaker sales continue to hurt profits across the sector.

The last couple of years have seen lots of these.  It will be interesting to see what happens this year, especially with immigration “reform” looming on the horizon.  Pretty certain: food prices will rise. A lot.