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Data released shortly before Christmas revealed the overall cost of the average Christmas dinner rose 0.4% in November.
The price of eggs rose a staggering 8.2% in November, with a 37.5% increase in the year to-date, according to CPI data shared by The Oklahoman. Prices remain at least 20% higher than they were before the pandemic. “It was a key issue in the election in terms of people really feeling that sticker shock at the grocery store,” Michigan State University food economist David Ortega told the outlet. (TAKE A POLL: Do You Prefer Giving Gifts Over Receiving Them?)
“On eggs, the story continues to be bird flu together with increased consumer demand given the holiday season,” he continued. “And for beef the issue is supply — high input costs and decisions that beef producers made a couple of years back when they were facing drought and high feed prices which has reduced beef supply, and this in turn is affecting beef prices.”
Eating Out or Staying Home?
The rise in costs of eating meals at home compared to the cost of going out is also getting rapidly narrower, the outlet noted. “The gap in inflation between restaurant menu prices and grocery year-over-year prices being the narrowest it has been since May 2023,” it added. (TAKE A POLL: Have You Already Started Thinking About Your New Year’s Resolutions?)
A big part of the problem is market concentration, according to Groundwork Collective chief economist Rakeen Mabud. “Across the food and grocery industry, we have a sector that is deeply consolidated … And so when you have big companies controlling such large chunks of the market, we know that they have used things like inflation, things like supply chain shocks to jack up prices far beyond what their input costs to justify.”
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