Wisconsin Ag Connection - Market Basket: Some Relief in Food Prices During Third Quarter

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Market Basket: Some Relief in Food Prices During Third Quarter
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 10/16/2012

The cost of many of your groceries at the local supermarket have actually gone down slightly in recent months. The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation released its latest Marketbasket Survey on Monday, which showed that the average price of 16 basic food items in 31 communities totalled $49.60 during the third quarter of the year. That was down 72 cents from three months earlier, and about two percent lower than one year ago.

WFBF Spokesman Casey Langan says this summer's drought will not likely affect the prices consumers pay at the register until sometime next year.

"Energy prices are always a major driver of food prices," Langan said. "Energy prices have been relatively high this year, but they have also been very stable. As a result, we are not seeing volatile price swings for food like we did in 2009 and 2010."

The report showed that about half of the 16 items went down in price since the previous quarter. Items with decreases of nine percent or more include russet potatoes, vegetable oil and white bread. But foods like bacon and eggs increased by the same percentage during the three months.

Langan notes that over the last three decades, retail grocery prices have gradually increased while the share of the average dollar spent on food that farm families receive has dropped.

"In the mid-1970s, farmers received about one-third of consumer retail food expenditures in grocery stores and restaurants," he notes. "Since then that figure has decreased steadily and is now about 16 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's revised Food Dollar Series. Using that percentage across the board, the farmer's share of this quarter's $49.60 grocery bill would be $7.94."

Nationally, the American Farm Bureau says the same items are averaging about $51.90 across the country, about a dollar more than the second quarter of 2012.

Communities surveyed include Appleton, Ashland, Beloit, Delavan, De Pere, Eau Claire, Edgerton, Ellsworth, Fitchburg, Fond du Lac, Hillsboro, Kenosha, Lancaster, Marshfield, Medford, Menomonie, Mequon, Milwaukee, New Berlin, New London, New Richmond, Oconto Falls, Plover, Racine, Rice Lake, Richland Center, Saukville, Shawano, Waterford, Watertown and West Bend.

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