Grocery prices lead people to buy at their local farmers market
Grocery prices are still rising even with inflation slowing down
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - While it seems that inflation is slowing down, grocery prices are still through the roof. And the US Federal Reserve said that when it comes to food prices, it’s largely out of their control.
The cost of food has spiked 11.4% over the past year with this being the largest annual increase since May 1979 according to data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A major increase in certain food items is seen with foods such as eggs, flour, milk and bread.
The increase in some of the food comes from other issues. For example, according to Business CNN, the rise in egg prices is due to a highly infectious avian flu that is forcing US farmers to kill some of their hens, which, in turn, is causing the country’s egg supply to go down while demand is still high, forcing prices to spike.
While some local Rapid City businesses don’t want to raise prices on certain items and won’t if they don’t have to, the pricing on some items is really not up to them. The price of items is determined by how much the initial vendor charges them for the product.
“If a vendor increases their price we do as well and a lot of it is because if we don’t do that... we can’t survive as a small business,” said Staple & Spice shop owner Tammy Yanders. “So, we really appreciate our customers that shop locally and continue to support us,”
The trade-off between vendors and suppliers is slowly turning some people away from shopping at their local grocery stores and having them look elsewhere for cheaper prices.
“Anything that I use like milk, eggs, butter I get from the farmer’s market. From locally grown places that’s where I get my ingredients now,” said Rapid City resident Rayne Morrow
As food prices continue to spike in grocery stores, people have started to turn to their local farmers market to find more affordable prices on groceries.
A frequent vendor at the market said that they have been seeing more people coming through as prices started to hike up.
“More people have been here than I have seen in the past probably five to six years. A lot of people seem to be shopping at farmers markets and I think it’s because our prices compare pretty well with what you’re going to purchase at the store,” said Nachtigall’s Greenhouse manager Matthew Nachtigall.
This increase in people shopping at their local farmers market might be a more frequent event because according to the USDA, food prices are predicted to slowly keep growing as we get closer to 2023 with food-at-home prices predicted to increase between 2% and 3%.
This is just on food because while shoppers can skimp on other items, such as clothing or gasoline, they still have to eat.
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