{"id":42112,"date":"2025-05-11T03:07:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T08:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42112"},"modified":"2025-05-11T04:55:38","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T09:55:38","slug":"grocery-shoppers-brace-to-pay-more-for-eggs-meat-and-other-staples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42112","title":{"rendered":"Grocery shoppers brace to pay more for eggs, meat and other staples"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Egg prices are stabilizing after a sharp run-up earlier this year<\/a>, but grocery shoppers are already getting used to shelling out more for those and other pantry staples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After peaking at $6.55 in mid-March, a dozen eggs sold for an average of $5.45 nationwide as of the week ending April 19, according to the latest data available from the market research firm NIQ. The ongoing decline<\/a> is welcome news for consumers, but it comes amid higher prices for a number of pantry staples even as inflation overall has cooled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The price surge has shifted shoppers\u2019 expectations, and many have begun to make peace with much higher costs, however grudgingly. The average price consumers say they\u2019d pay for a dozen eggs is $5.56, the market research firm Numerator reported last month<\/a>, up sharply from $4.90 in January. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis increased willingness to pay over the past few months indicates consumers are growing accustomed to higher egg prices, either consciously or subconsciously,\u201d the researchers said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it isn\u2019t just eggs: Many shoppers are bracing to pay more for groceries overall as they shift focus toward covering essentials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many are now planning to trim their spending this summer<\/a> on everything from clothing and furniture to travel, according to a survey the consulting firm KPMG released in late April. Groceries were one of just two categories where shoppers said they expect to spend more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTariffs have gone from background noise to front and center for consumers \u2014 and their grocery receipts show it,\u201d Heather Rice, consumer and retail tax leader at KPMG, said in a statement with the results. \u201cShoppers are more price-sensitive than ever, and many are connecting rising costs directly to tariffs.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumer sentiment recently hit a 12-year low<\/a> in a closely watched Conference Board survey as more households anticipate inflation climbing this year. The annual pace of consumer price increases clocked in at 2.4% in March<\/a>, down from 2.8% the prior month, but that was before President Donald Trump vastly expanded his global trade war<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many shoppers have already raced to scoop up foreign-made goods<\/a>, including big-ticket purchases like cars and trucks<\/a>, to get ahead of import taxes on a broad range of products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House touted progress<\/a> toward a new trade deal with the U.K. on Thursday, and Trump has repeatedly asserted<\/a> that \u201calmost all costs,\u201d including eggs and other groceries, have fallen on his watch. But despite revisions<\/a>, walk-backs and delays<\/a> to various parts of his trade agenda, the president\u2019s tariffs have already made many products more expensive than they were earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the NIQ and federal inflation data show ongoing price increases for a range of common purchases. Corporate executives caution that\u00a0tremendous uncertainty remains<\/a>\u00a0over how Trump\u2019s evolving policies will shake out across the consumer economy, and some are already\u00a0warning of potential price hikes<\/a>\u00a0this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, many sticker prices in supermarkets\u2019 refrigerated aisles are ticking up, rising 2% for chicken breasts and 1% for ground beef in the latest NIQ data since four weeks earlier. Year over year, beef costs nearly 10% more and egg prices nearly 50% more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not everything has gotten more expensive. Among the staples surveyed, bacon and orange juice prices have declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prices of many meat and dairy products could continue to swing depending on the course of Trump\u2019s trade war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States is a major pork producer, for example, and exports about a fifth of that meat overseas, noted Michael Swanson, chief agricultural economist at the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute. About 15% of both U.S. chicken and dairy are typically also shipped abroad \u2014 a situation other nations\u2019 retaliatory tariffs now threaten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf those three [product categories] couldn\u2019t find those export markets because of tariff actions and people simply weren\u2019t buying them, that would force the U.S. to keep that product home,\u201d Swanson said, which would likely mean lower prices for shoppers domestically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That would be welcome news for consumers but not for farmers. Agricultural exporters are already raising alarms of a \u201cfull-blown crisis\u201d<\/a> as foreign buyers pull back on purchases. Chinese importers recently halted delivery of 12,000 tons of American pork, the biggest such cancellation since 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, Swanson said, \u201cthere\u2019s actually more risk of deflation in some categories than inflation in the overall food package, if we have extended trade disputes.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That remains a big \u201cif,\u201d though, as the Trump administration angles for a trade deal with Beijing while publicly signaling a hard line on talks<\/a>. Until any truce is brokered, China still faces an effective U.S. tariff rate of 145% and has hit back with its own duties of up to 125%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to agricultural goods, Swanson noted, \u201cthe Chinese do have the ability to pressure us, because they actually buy more from us than we buy from them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Egg prices are stabilizing after a sharp run-up earlier this year, but grocery shoppers are already getting used to shelling out more for those and other pantry staples.  After peaking at $6.55 in mid-March, a dozen eggs sold for an average of $5.45 nationwide as of the week ending April 19, according to the latest data […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":42113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[30627,22472,23507],"class_list":["post-42112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-brace","tag-grocery","tag-shoppers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42114,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42112\/revisions\/42114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}