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Back in January USDA Economist Matthew MacLachlan was forecasting that retail food price inflation this year would finally cool down from the 3.5% increases in 2020, and also in 2021, and was projecting food price hikes this year would run only between 1.5 and 2.5%.
Those projections four months ago are far removed from the April forecast for 2022 food prices.
"For all food, we're looking at price increases between 5 and 6%. For food at home, we're also looking at a 5 to 6% price increase. For food away from home, we did not adjust this past month, and is projected to be between 5.5 and 6.5%,” Maclachlan says.
Released this week, the Consumer Price Index for Food cites the impacts from the conflict in Ukraine and the recent increases in interest rates by the Federal Reserve are expected to put upward and downward pressures on food prices, respectively. The situations will be closely monitored to assess the net impacts of the concurrent events on food prices as they unfold.
"We have somewhere in the double digits of gasoline, and other fuel price increases. The conflict going on in Ukraine, which is contributing to higher wheat, higher flour and higher downstream prices," Maclachlan says. "We have an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, and that specifically affects the prices of poultry, meat and eggs."
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