From The Associated Press, 3/30/08:
http://www.miamiherald.com/134/story/474699.html
The mounting cost of food
By BETSY BLANEY
The Associated Press
Next time you restock your pantry, be prepared for sticker shock.
The price of wheat has more than tripled during the past 10 months,
making Americans' daily bread -- and bagels and pizza and pasta --
more expensive.
And baked goods aren't the only ones getting more expensive:
Experts expect about 80 percent of grocery prices will spike, too, and
could remain steep for years because wheat and other grains are used
to feed cattle, poultry and dairy cows.
''It's going to affect everything . . . impact on every section of the
grocery store,'' said Michael Bittel, senior vice president of King
Arthur Flour Co. in Norwich, Vt.
Consumers such as Maria Cardena feel trapped by the prices.
She said the bread she buys has jumped in recent weeks.
''You have to buy it,'' said the 29-year-old mother from Lubbock,
Texas.
``You can't go without it. Everything has gone up.''
Last week in a Miami Publix, the cheapest 20-ounce loaf of white bread
cost $1.85 (on special).
Most brands of the same size loaf were priced from $2.49 to $2.79.
In 1998, white bread cost an average of 85 cents a pound and $1.03 in
February 2006.
The price rose to $1.32 a pound last month, according to federal data.
And that's on top of overall food price increases of 4 percent last
year and an additional 3.5 to 4.5 percent expected this year,
according to federal data.
Most years see 2.5 percent increases.
During the past few months, the price of cereals and baked goods has
risen nearly 6 percent over the same time last year, federal officials
re****ted.
Consumers can try to minimize costs by buying fewer wheat products,
but the nation's bakers, pizzerias and other flour-dependent
industries don't have that luxury.
Panera Bread Company, for example, is paying more than double what it
paid for wheat in 2007 -- an additional $26.5 million this year,
according to its latest earnings re****t.
At Kraft Foods, producer of Ritz crackers and Chips Ahoy cookies, the
cost of commodities including wheat were up 9 percent last year, or
about $1.3 billion.
Spokeswoman Lisa Gibbons called that unprecedented and said the
company doesn't expect prices to ease anytime soon.
The company has offset most of those costs by finding savings
elsewhere, such as switching its Miracle Whip sandwich spread from
glass to cheaper plastic bottles.
The wheat market has been pushed higher by a combination of
agricultural, financial and energy issues.
Poor wheat harvests in Australia and parts of Europe and the United
States have caused China and other Asian countries to buy up more
American crops, which are especially attractive because of the weak
U.S. dollar.
At the same time, the American crop is shrinking because of federal
incentives to grow corn for ethanol.
And skyrocketing gas prices make it costlier to get any wheat to
market.
Those same pressures also have made it more expensive to supply feed
grains for livestock.
At Bob's Red Mill flour company, wheat flour has typically been
subject to retail price adjustments every five years.
Now those increases are happening almost monthly.
'You look at the price and you say, `Oh, my gosh,' '' said Dennis
Gilliam, executive vice president of sales and marketing for the
company in Milwaukie, Ore.
``It keeps climbing every day.''
Some consumers are baking more.
King Arthur's Bittel said that while store-bought bakery bread [such
as olive loaf or garlic rye] is running between $3 and $5, a home
baked loaf will cost about 60 cents.
________________________________________________
Put your dough to good use. Bake your own.
Harry
________________________________________________
Today we paid $150 for about 10+ days worth of food. Some might be
considered luxury items like orange juice, strawberries, su**** from Publix
and coffee.
Due to Liberal policies over the environment America pays nearly $4.00 a
gallon for gas and the third world now starves because of Ethanol corn
grown
in the former Bread Basket of the World.
--
CB
What put's Algore in his lockbox?
http://home.austarnet.com.au/yours/Global%20Warming%20Problem.gif
2006 power bill
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/07.03.04.ConspicConsump-X.gif
Global warming on Mars
In its ninth year in orbit around Mars, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor has
made
a number of surprising discoveries. For three Mars summers in a row,
deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from
the
previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress. Apparently,
President Bush's environmental policies are so destructive that they are
causing global warming throughout the solar system.
--Harry Dope
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