As inflation continues to slow, shoppers are finally getting some relief at the grocery store.
Rising food prices have been a major driver of inflation since 2020, with a combination of labor shortages, supply chain issues and outbreaks of bird flu sending grocery bills up. they went up quickly.
An NBC News analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that American consumers are paying nearly 40% more for a basket of common groceries, including eggs, chicken, milk and coffee, than before the World Food Organization Health will declare covid-19 a pandemic. in early 2020.
A large part of the rise in grocery prices came from eggs, which were in short supply for much of last year due to the worst avian flu outbreak on record.
More than 40 million laying hens were culled from February 2022 to January, driving prices up more than 200%. While egg prices remain higher than many other grocery items, the problem has improved considerably this year.
Chicken breasts, by contrast, saw much more modest increases. Poultry are usually kept separate from egg hens and culled well before hatching, leaving less time for disease to spread.
The sharp rise in grocery prices in recent years has sometimes challenged the conventional wisdom that it is cheaper to eat at home than in restaurants. While the prices consumers actually pay depend on where they choose to shop and dine out, BLS data shows that prices for food at home rose faster than food outside the home for most of 2022.
Even so, eating out continues to rise more steeply, rising 7.7% since June 2022 versus 4.7% for eating at home during that period, the latest data shows.
Food inflation is still higher than the headline inflation rate. The BLS Food Index rose 5.7% last month from the same period last year, steeper than the national inflation rate of 3%.