Shoppers are paying a bit more for their groceries this spring. A new survey from Farm Bureau shows that meat and orange juice are the biggest contributors to an increase of 60 cents of a $53.87 grocery bill on 16 food items, or about of 1 percent, in the group’s Spring Picnic Marketbasket survey.
“Several meat items increased in price, accounting for much of the modest increase in the marketbasket,” said John Anderson, AFBF’s deputy chief economist. “The 1 percent increase shown by our survey tracks closely with the Agriculture Department’s forecast of 2 percent to 3 percent food inflation for 2015,” he said.
Items showing retail price increases from a year ago included:
· sirloin tip roast, up 14 percent to $5.71 per pound
· ground chuck, up 12 percent to $4.61 per pound
· orange juice, up 7 percent to $3.47 per half-gallon
· toasted oat cereal, up 7 percent to $3.12 for a 9-ounce box
· deli ham, up 6 percent to $5.53 per pound
· eggs, up 4 percent to $2.05 per dozen
· shredded cheddar cheese, up 3 percent to $4.59 per pound
· potatoes, up 2 percent to $2.74 for a 5-pound bag
Prices for flour, bacon and whole milk are among the items that actually went down in the survey.
Another item that went down in the survey was the amount farmers see of the food dollar. Farm Bureau officials point out that that the farmer’s share of the $53.87 grocery bill would be $8.62, or just 16 percent. That’s only about half of what U.S. farmers got out of the consumer retail dollar.