Start tightening your belt; it turns out that food prices are rising. Two months of sharp increases in food prices have now shown that grocers are starting to pass along their higher wholesale costs to consumers, according to USA Today.
On Tuesday, the March Consumer Price Index was released. This, in particular, revealed that food costs rose a total of .4 percent for the second consecutive month, according to Slate. That's not all, either. Over the past year, grocery costs have increased by 1.4 percent.
If you think that food prices are going to be going down in the near future, you'd better think again. The beef industry in particular is expected to have prices that will continue to rise over the next few years. This is partially due to the fact that there's increased demand for beef in Asia, and partly due to the fact that a massive drought in the Southwest and parts of the Midwest caused ranchers to cull their herds; they now need time to raise and regrow cattle in order to keep up with demand.
Drought, in particular, is to blame for the rising food prices in general. Drought in the western U.S. over recent years has driven up the prices of meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables, according to The Wall Street Journal. In fact, parts of California, the Southwest and the Great Plains have suffered from three consecutive years of drought.
"Living standards will suffer as a larger percentage of household budgets are spent on grocery store bills, leaving less for discretionary spending," said Chris Christopher of HIS Global Insight in an interview with USA Today.
It's likely that there won't be relief in sight for some time. Because of the drought and because ranchers need to rebuild their herds, it's likely that we'll continue to see a rise in food prices-at least until environmental conditions improve.
