ECON Report food and grocery price increases/shortages here: 2021 Edition

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twobarkingdogs

Veteran Member
...snip...

so I bought a bag of yellow onions and a bag of sweet onions.

FYI - Onions are real easy to grow and can be started by either sets or seeds. I always start mine from seed. The only thing you have to pay attention to is your growing location because onions have both short day and long day varieties. The difference is the amount of daylight required for the onion to form the bulb.

I grow short day onions due to living in georgia. 100+ yellow onions like you find in the grocery store don't really take up that much room. I grow grando 1015 and normally start my seeds in waves starting around dec 1'st and plant in the ground once the seedlings are around 2 months old if the soil can be worked then.

I also grow a couple of multiplier type onions, egyption walking, potato and a red shallot. These varieties honestly are not as easy to eat as the grando 1015's due to their smaller size but actually have a stronger onion taste. Advantage is that in a SHTF I'll always have onions to eat. My egyption walking onions stay in the ground all year where as the potato and shallots get harvestly like normal onions and then replanted in the late fall.

Garlic is another easy thing to grow at home which also does not take up much space. I'd recommend hitting up a farmers market to buy a type grown locally in your AO but even the bulk ones from the grocery will grow decent. Garlic comes in both softneck and hardneck with the softnecks being grown mostly in the south. But in my AO of n.ga both types can be grown but with the softnecks usually doing the best.

tbd
 

inskanoot

Veteran Member
Sigh. Sometimes I do wish for a Tractor Supply or a Dollar Store or an Aldis or even a Publix. Well, says I, at least I live where it’s cold and dark for most of the year!
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that’s good too, right? ;)
Tractor supply and Dollar Tree and Aldi take online orders, but I don’t know if they deliver to Alaska.
 

9idrr

Veteran Member
Although everywhere online seems to say that corn needs to be broken up / grinded to feed to chickens, I feed whole kernels to all my chickens with no obvious issues. Their crop seems to grind it up just find (as long as they have plenty of access to grit which is not the same thing as oyster shells). I do this specifically because whole kernel corn can be stored for a very long time, where once you crack it open it starts to loose it's nutritional value rather quickly.

My understanding of popcorn is that it is a very different beast, and should not be considered "corn" when thinking about animal feed. However, that does not mean that it can't be fed, I just haven't researched it -- just realize that popcorn may be very different from corn when it comes to animal feed.

(Note: I free range my chickens all day, and they get most of their food that way).
Not familiar with grinded. Could that be ground, as in ground beef?
 

Barry Natchitoches

Has No Life - Lives on TB
We have lots of a plant that locals call Curly Doc growing wild in these parts. I don’t know of that is their true name, or just what a locals call it.

Anyway, chickens love the broad leaves that grow on this plant, so I will go to relatively uninhabited rural areas and harvest vast quantities of these leaves in the spring for my ladies.

Then I go back in July to get the dried, brown, seed filled shoots that grow out of the plant. I use a hoe or scythe to cut the stems, then separate the dried brown upshoots from the rest of the plant, and take it home. Once home, it is very easy to liberate the seeds from the rest of the dried, brown stalk.

An old farmer who was as wise and skilled as Summerthyme taught me how to do this. I bag all those seeds in 2 gallon Ziploc storage bags, and pull them out come winter time. The seeds are a great, local source of protein.
 

9idrr

Veteran Member
A lot of folks are going to get paid tomorrow (Aug. 1). I strongly suggest that if you need anything, try to get there a few minutes after the store opens and heed the advice about making substitutions, where possible, if exactly what you want isn't in.

I'm hunting winter socks. There are still some in the pipeline: they've been trickling in over the last two weeks. I'm going to snag what I can tomorrow. I'm not ordering anything at this point! I'm still waiting for several orders I put in about six weeks ago.

I thought that if the 1st fell on a weekend or holiday, most dot-gov checks are on the business day before? Used to be the day after but I'm pretty sure that changed years ago. Saturday or Sunday means payday would be the preceding Friday and in the case of the 3rd of the month checks, say Labor Day being that day everybody's check goes out for Friday. Stores and banks here show every indication of that being the case.
 

phloydius

Veteran Member
Not familiar with grinded. Could that be ground, as in ground beef?

I don't think I'd use a meat grinder like the one that I'd use for making ground beef for grinding corn. At least the one I have would not seem up to the task. If you want to make ground corn by grinding whole corn, I'd recommend a grain or seed grinder. Whole corn could be grinded into ground corn by using a manual grinder like the one linked below (although I don't recommend this specific one, because I do not have one, so thine own mileage may vary).

 

9idrr

Veteran Member
I don't think I'd use a meat grinder like the one that I'd use for making ground beef for grinding corn. At least the one I have would not seem up to the task. If you want to make ground corn by grinding whole corn, I'd recommend a grain or seed grinder. Whole corn could be grinded into ground corn by using a manual grinder like the one linked below (although I don't recommend this specific one, because I do not have one, so thine own mileage may vary).


I was just ribbin' ya about the word grinded instead of ground. Next time I'll try to remember the /S/ tag. :)
 

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
FYI - Onions are real easy to grow and can be started by either sets or seeds. I always start mine from seed. The only thing you have to pay attention to is your growing location because onions have both short day and long day varieties. The difference is the amount of daylight required for the onion to form the bulb.

I grow short day onions due to living in georgia. 100+ yellow onions like you find in the grocery store don't really take up that much room. I grow grando 1015 and normally start my seeds in waves starting around dec 1'st and plant in the ground once the seedlings are around 2 months old if the soil can be worked then.

I also grow a couple of multiplier type onions, egyption walking, potato and a red shallot. These varieties honestly are not as easy to eat as the grando 1015's due to their smaller size but actually have a stronger onion taste. Advantage is that in a SHTF I'll always have onions to eat. My egyption walking onions stay in the ground all year where as the potato and shallots get harvestly like normal onions and then replanted in the late fall.

Garlic is another easy thing to grow at home which also does not take up much space. I'd recommend hitting up a farmers market to buy a type grown locally in your AO but even the bulk ones from the grocery will grow decent. Garlic comes in both softneck and hardneck with the softnecks being grown mostly in the south. But in my AO of n.ga both types can be grown but with the softnecks usually doing the best.

tbd

I've given up on trying to grow onions and garlic, it's just not happening in our garden patch no matter what types we try. Garlic chives now those I can grow and they grow very well.
 

Zagdid

Veteran Member

Food price hikes expected to continue this year, slow in 2022
Last year, COVID-19 related disruptions drove prices for food purchased at grocery stores to an unusually high 3.5% increase. For 2021, the increases on many of those same food items will be between 2-3% overall, but USDA Economist Carolyn Chelius recently bumped up the projected price forecasts for meats by 1% in the department’s latest Food Price Outlook.
Written By: Sara Wyant | 5:30 am, Aug. 1, 2021

If you’ve been doing any grocery shopping lately, you know that the cost of many basic food items has increased since what seemed like some stiff increases in 2020. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it may take several more months before prices return to more normal trends.

Last year, COVID-19 related disruptions drove prices for food purchased at grocery stores to an unusually high 3.5% increase. For 2021, the increases on many of those same food items will be between 2-3% overall, but USDA Economist Carolyn Chelius recently bumped up the projected price forecasts for meats by 1% in the department’s latest Food Price Outlook.

“We’re predicting beef and veal prices will increase 3-4% and pork prices 4-5%.” Poultry prices are expected to increase 2.5-3.5%. Fish and seafood prices are now predicted to increase between 2-3%. Chelius says fresh fruits are leading the list of this year's retail price hikes and are now predicted to increase between 5-6% in 2021.

“Meats only make up about 22% of food at home prices and although prices have increased a fair amount over the course of 2021 so far and they will drive the price of food at home, there are other categories that haven’t increased that much so far this year such as cereals and bakery products,” Chelius said on USDA’s Newsline.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that farmers are reaping in huge rewards from the retail food dollar. On average, U.S. farmers received 14.3 cents for farm commodity sales from each dollar spent on domestically produced food in 2019, up from a revised estimate of 14.2 cents in 2018. Known as the farm share, this amount increased slightly after 7 consecutive years of decline, according to USDA.

There are several variables at play. First of all, the level of food price inflation varies depending on whether the food was purchased for consumption away from home or at home.

In 2021, food-at-home prices are expected to increase between 2-3%, and food-away-from-home prices are expected to increase between 3-4%. In 2022, food-at-home prices are expected to increase between 1.5-2.5% and food-away-from-home prices are expected to increase between 3-4%.

Between the 1970s and early 2000s, food-at-home prices and food-away-from-home prices increased at similar rates, USDA notes. “Since 2009, however, their rates of growth have diverged; while food-at-home prices deflated in 2016 and 2017, monthly food-away-from-home prices have been rising consistently since then.” The divergence is partly due to differences between the costs of serving prepared food at restaurants and retailing foods in supermarkets and grocery stores.

In 2019, retail food-at-home prices rose 0.9%. This increase was the second in 4 years, but the rate was still below the 20-year annual average of 2%. While prices for poultry, eggs, fats and oils, and fresh fruits declined in 2019, prices for all other food categories increased. Fresh vegetables had the largest annual average increase of 3.8% in 2019 and eggs the largest annual average decrease of 10%.

In 2020, food-at-home prices increased 3.5% and food-away-from-home prices 3.4%. This convergence was largely driven by a rapid increase in food-at-home prices while food-away-from-home price inflation remained within 0.2 percentage points of the 2019 inflation rate. The largest price increases were for meat categories: beef and veal prices increased by 9.6%, pork prices by 6.3%, and poultry prices by 5.6%. The only category to decrease in price in 2020 was fresh fruits, by 0.8%

USDA says prices this year have been driven up by strong domestic and international demand, high feed costs, and supply chain disruptions. Winter storms and drought impacted meat prices this spring, and processing facility closures due to cybersecurity attacks impacted beef and other meat production in May.

In addition, Chelius notes that economy-wide inflation is also high and contributing to overall price increases. The Consumer Price Index for “all-items,” which encompasses food, housing, transportation, and other categories, has increased 2.9% so far in 2021 compared to 2020. “For context, annual all-items inflation has averaged 2% over the past 20 years. Inflation in 2021 is already nearly 50% higher than average annual inflation only halfway through the year. Above-average inflation is expected to continue through 2022,” the agency noted.
 

twobarkingdogs

Veteran Member
I've given up on trying to grow onions and garlic, it's just not happening in our garden patch no matter what types we try. Garlic chives now those I can grow and they grow very well.

Remember onions and garlic are heavy feeders and the amount of green growth kind of determines bulb size. So at the beginning of the season and then monthly for the next couple of months I fertilizer with a nitrogen fertilizer like a 34-0-0 and then switch to a 10-10-10 after the 3'rd month. I should also say I plant here in n.ga around oct 1'st so as to get some root development before winter sets in. I get onions equal or better then the yellow onions you get in the stores and my garlic has much larger cloves then grocery store garlic.

tbd
 

John Deere Girl

Veteran Member
Remember onions and garlic are heavy feeders and the amount of green growth kind of determines bulb size. So at the beginning of the season and then monthly for the next couple of months I fertilizer with a nitrogen fertilizer like a 34-0-0 and then switch to a 10-10-10 after the 3'rd month. I should also say I plant here in n.ga around oct 1'st so as to get some root development before winter sets in. I get onions equal or better then the yellow onions you get in the stores and my garlic has much larger cloves then grocery store garlic.

tbd
I plant onions and garlic around September, and ours do well. I also grow walking onions.
 

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie / FJB!
I plant mine in containers. I've got more light now that I've had the front trees pruned.
 

phloydius

Veteran Member
Keystone Ground Beef 14oz (from & by Amazon -- not a 3rd party).

In Stock Soon: Sold by and from Amazon w/ FREE Delivery Aug 10 - 13 for Prime members. Limit 10!

When I checked the website to see about the delivery date if someone placed a new order and the estimated delivery date has shifted to September 19-20.

The listing "by and from Amazon" for $4.99 is now gone, and has been replaced "by Keystone Meats from Amazon" (which was not listed there before) for $8.96 for the 14oz with delivery on Sept 20th.

The 14oz Keystone Ground Beef (Sold by and from Amazon) is now listed again at the same $4.99 per can, and the delivery date has changed to Aug 3 - 21.
 

bluelady

Veteran Member
Keystone Ground Beef 14oz (from & by Amazon -- not a 3rd party).







The 14oz Keystone Ground Beef (Sold by and from Amazon) is now listed again at the same $4.99 per can, and the delivery date has changed to Aug 3 - 21.

Amazon shows $8.96 now, and some insane prices for multi packs.

Mine has shipped! Left Des Moines Saturday, should be here Thursday.

Let's hope they packed them decently. Last order 4-28 oz cans of turkey were loose in a big box with other stuff, and all badly dented. I filed a return claim; they refunded but said I didn't need to return them. So since they weren't leaking/broken, I opened them & froze in baggies. No longer long term storage, but should make nice soup this winter. The turkey is on my subscribe and save, so hoping they pack better next month!
 

phloydius

Veteran Member
14oz cans from Keystone Meats
Showing the single result
$92.00

Does anyone know if this is a reliable seller/website? Price seems WAY too good to be true! $3.83 per can?

KeystoneMeats.com is the companies main website as far as I can tell. So it should be direct from the manufacturer. Note that the price does not include shipping: When I calculated shipping to my zip, the total price was about $120, which brought it up to just below the price of buying it from Amazon. So this is the best deal online that I've seen currently. Thanks John70 for posting it. Every time I've looked at that site recently, they were Out of Stock. :)
 

1911user

Veteran Member
I would bet that the keystone factory would package much better than amazon especially since they collect shipping costs. They also only sell in case quantities which would make packaging easier. Buying direct has been a more expensive option in the past. Out of stock has been an issue as well.
 

nehimama

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I tried to order a case from the Keystone website for my daughter in FL, but the cardholder's address didn't match the delivery address. Also, the email address - mine - didn't match the delivery address, and THEN my daughter's email address didn't match the card holder's! AARRGGHH!
 

Terrwyn

Veteran Member
I tried to order a case from the Keystone website for my daughter in FL, but the cardholder's address didn't match the delivery address. Also, the email address - mine - didn't match the delivery address, and THEN my daughter's email address didn't match the card holder's! AARRGGHH!
My sympathy! Off subject but I just spent 30 minutes trying to log in to my medical account. I exist to send the email to but don't exist to sign in. Computers are no substitute for the old way of doing things. They have caused the total dumbing down of America. Along of course with all the anchor baby retards manning the desks up here.
 

thompson

Certa Bonum Certamen
I would bet that the keystone factory would package much better than amazon especially since they collect shipping costs. They also only sell in case quantities which would make packaging easier. Buying direct has been a more expensive option in the past. Out of stock has been an issue as well.
They do!
 

Terrwyn

Veteran Member
Well I did a medium size order at smart and final with Instacart. They had all the items but wait till you hear what they charged for Romain lettuce. 6.19 Never seen anything like the prices right now. Hyperinflation maybe? They are saying it hasn't arrived yet but you could fool me.
 

Coco82919

Veteran Member
I went to my local SAMS club yesterday. The vitamin shelf was all but bare. Just a few scattered containers.

I heard something on the news about SAMS and Walmart requiring face masks to shop. I put one in my pocket just incase. I noticed a sign on the door about wanting shoppers to wear masks. I looked around and the people ahead of me to get in the store just walked in without a mask. So I did the same. I noticed less then half the customers had masks on. I even stopped and talked with a few SAMS club employees about different items they had and no one said a word to me about wearing masks. On the over head they occasionally played a clip saying that they were requesting shoppers to wear masks and to socially distance.

I noticed a lot of yellow price tags on products. I asked one employee what they meant. He said A+ meant the price was lower to compete with their competitor. I assumed he meant Costco. A just meant the price was lowered. C meant the product was to be discontinued. The only C item I noticed was number 10 cans of peach slices.

I did notice there were significant price reductions. I usually by a 5 pound bag of shredded cheddar cheese. It use to be around 10 dollars. It creeped up to 18 dollars. It was only 12 dollars yesterday. Also Pantene conditioner was on sale. Usually 8 or 9 dollars, it was less then 6 dollars so I bought 3, the max you can buy. 2 containers of Jif peanut butter on sale of 8 dollars it had creeped up to 11 or 12 dollars recently. There were many more items like this. The only thing I noticed that was higher was beef, probably chicken as well but I never checked.
 

nehimama

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Keystone website now states the ground beef is out of stock. My case of 24 was just delivered about a half hour ago. A few of their other meats are now out of stock. This is the Keystone website; not Amazon or Ebay. I found their pricing to be quite reasonable, and shipping pricing is reasonable, too.
 

phloydius

Veteran Member
Keystone website now states the ground beef is out of stock. My case of 24 was just delivered about a half hour ago. A few of their other meats are now out of stock. This is the Keystone website; not Amazon or Ebay. I found their pricing to be quite reasonable, and shipping pricing is reasonable, too.

If / when you notice it back in stock, can you let us know?
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
If / when you notice it back in stock, can you let us know?
I've been watching and with Amazon and Keystone...if you hit it lucky at the exact right moment, you can get the regular price. A few minutes later, and they are gone and back to the stupid prices of the gouging second party sellers. Sometimes for days.

The Keystone price on their website really is reasonable, even with the shipping. For beef, the canned burger is pretty good, too. I'm really not interested in those big cans. A pound is usually enough for most recipes, so I stick to the 14.5's if I can get them. Availability is sure day-to-day for all of it.
 
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Nich1

Veteran Member
Went to Aldi's in the Piedmont of NC. 73% @ 2.79/lb ground beef had one pack left...it came home with me. They had 5# tubes of same fat content ground beef for $11.67 ea. For some reason, the tubes seem greasier when cooking, but something may be better than nothing so I bought one! Chicken wings @$2.99/# but only 2 packs available. Pork chops were plentiful. Rib-eye steak is now $13.99/# so I decided I could live without that...not as well perhaps, but I could live. Pepperoni was back in stock. Bacon was $3.99/#; butter was $1.94/#. There were not many holes other than the beef.

Few customers and even fewer masks. Register checkers wore masks. All in all, a good day. There were not overloaded carts...other than my own. :-)
 
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