You may have noticed you’re paying more for your groceries. New research finds food prices increasing much faster than raises in your paycheck.
“Everyday that I go out for any kind of lunch foods or anything like that, it’s another .50-cent or another .75 or a dollar more and it starts to add up,” said Scott Belanger of Greenfield. Belanger continued, asking 22News “Who do I complain to?”
According to a recent study by USA Today, the price of food has increased nearly 27-percent over the past 10-years, outpacing the inflation rate by nearly 5-percent. Forcing retailers to cover the cost to pass it along to its customers.
“If our cost goes up a nickel, retail goes up a nickel,” said Richard Cooper.
The cost of food is subject to change, based on several factors; weather, disease outbreak and what consumers are preferring these days.
Bread, pasta and baked goods all cost more because grains have increased more than 31-percent, over the last decade. Butter and margarine saw one of the biggest increases with a nearly 55-percent jump in price. The owner of State Street Fruit Store in Northampton & Cooper’s Corner in Florence believes he knows why.
“I think a lot of the price increases are seasonal. So for example, milk and milk by-products tend to go up in the summertime, because more of those are diverted to ice cream. Fuel prices are a big factor, its causes all suppliers to have to increase their prices,” said Cooper.
The consumer item with the biggest increase was tobacco, which rose more than 92-percent, after a federal tax hike in 2009.
