In the recent year, particularly in the last few months, food inflation has been a serious issue for Americans. Food prices have been skyrocketing as a result of a variety of circumstances, putting a strain on everyone’s finances.
Everything that goes into growing crops is increasing in price, threatening to drive global food inflation even higher.
Costs of food production were already high. The epidemic disrupted supply lines, making it more difficult and expensive to get critical parts and materials for crop production. Then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine escalated the situation, sending fertilizer and fuel prices skyrocketing. Inflation is so high that farmers are struggling to make ends meet even as food prices rise.
Even before the upheaval produced by the war in Ukraine was taken into account, some food staples saw exceptionally large price hikes.
Include eggs to the increasing list of foods whose costs are rising in supermarkets. The cause is a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak that has spread across the United States.
Since Jan. 26, HPAI has been found in commercial poultry enterprises, backyard farms, and wild flocks all over the East Coast and Midwest.
According to the Department of Agriculture, the situation has gotten so terrible that millions of hens and turkeys have had to be slaughtered at poultry farms across the country.
Wholesale eggs rose 10 cents to $1.60 a dozen on Wednesday, according to Urner Barry data, the largest daily gain since the beginning of the viral pandemic. The average price of wholesale eggs during the last five years has been roughly $1.44.
The American diet is based on eggs, beef, and grains. The American picture of the happy life has traditionally included eggs with toast for breakfast and pot roast or hamburger for supper, both of which are as antithetical to who Americans desire to be as the white picket fence or sparkling car in the driveway. They’re about to become prohibitively expensive.
