Editor's Welcome

by David Reed

June 13,2008

It's no wonder people are more in touch with the relentless rise in gas prices than they are food prices. Put a big sign in front of all the grocery stores in town, showing just that day's price for a gallon of whole milk, and shoppers would be more like drivers in their sensitivity.

At the end of the first quarter, the sign for the milk price at a typical supermarket in Missouri would have said $3.36. That's based on the Farm Bureau's Quarterly Marketbasket Survey. At the end of the same quarter three years ago, the sign would have read $2.69.

For the CBT story on food prices written by Matt Jarzemsky, we crunched the Marketbasket Survey data over a four-year period, using milk and five other typical food items, to get a better understanding of the trends.

To get a more local view, Matt shopped at three grocery stores at the end of April and priced the same products at each store. There's a chart with those prices on Page 12. It's not scientific, just a snapshot at a point in time.

I knew prices at the grocery store had been going up. It hit me hard when our family's bill at the checkout station rose above $200 for the first time. But the number we came up with from the Marketbasket Survey analysis surprised me: Consumers in Missouri are paying close to 40 percent more for those common items now than they were four years ago. While not as extreme as the recent escalation of gas prices, that increase takes a hefty chunk out of the family budget.

And all of our information sources said food prices are going to keep going up in the months and years ahead. The extremely wet weather in the Midwest this year isn't helping matters—farmers are unable to plant as much corn as they planned, and lower supplies can translate into higher prices for corn and higher prices for food derived from corn.

While many people point to a scapegoat for the painful price at the pump—the oil company executives or maybe Arab cartel members—the culprits behind the food price increases are harder to get a bead on.

High fuel prices, the growing use of corn for ethanol production, the consumption of more grain and meat in China and India, climate change and the list goes on.
In our next issue, we'll look at the impact of the high gas prices and how business people are adjusting.

CORRECTION: In a brief article on Page 31 of the May 31 CBT, we erroneously reported that the Women’s Wellness Center is part of Boone Hospital Center. The center headed by Dr. Laura Grant (www.womenswellnessnow.com) is unaffiliated with BHC and is located in Broadway Medical Plaza Building 4 at 1705 E. Broadway.

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