1. This week, The Lever published a phenomenal story detailing how the 10 largest publicly owned food and restaurant companies have paid out $77 billion in dividends to shareholders despite falling inflation.
"Americans paid roughly 25 percent more on groceries and dining out this March than they paid in January 2020, outpacing the rate of general inflation," writes reporter Veronica Riccobene.
Read more about "Big Food, Big Profits, Big Lies" at The Lever.
2. Responding to the backlash about sky-high food prices, some retailers are waging a full on public-relations campaign to tout plans to lower prices on some items in the coming months. Vox reports that Walmart is slashing the price of a French loaf to $1; at Aldi, macarons are falling 40 cents; at Target is eyeing cuts on staples like “milk, meat, bread, soda, fresh fruit and vegetables, snacks, yogurt, peanut butter, coffee, diapers, paper towels and pet food.”
Vox's Whizy Kim writes: "It’s a savvy play for shifting perceptions of value, crucial for consumers in the decision-making process of where to shop for bread and eggs. Customers benefit by saving some money; retailers possibly benefit even more by being known as the company that magnanimously trimmed prices."
Read more about What’s really happening to grocery prices right now on Vox.
3. North of the border, The Conversation took a look at Canadian supermarket prices and determined that there's a lot of bad science involved in assessing the causes of price hikes. Sure, bad storms and supply-chain hiccups are real things, the report notes, but "some major environmental issues, like biodiversity loss and collapsing fish stocks, do not appear in reports, despite a widespread understanding that they will impact food price and availability."
Nor do other decisions that grocers and other private sector entities have made that impact prices on bagged milk and other Canadian goods such as increased consolidation and concentration in the grocery sector.
Read more about Why are grocery bills so high? A new study looks at the science behind food price reporting.
4. It also depends on what you mean by inflation. Axios notes that many folks conflate inflation, which has a specific definition in economic science, and prices that are just too high for their liking. Currently, inflation hovers around its quarter-century average, about 3.5%. Meanwhile, news reports often talk about inflation simply as, "Am I paying higher prices for things than I used to?"
However: "Under that definition, inflation can be high even when prices are falling.... On a literal level, that should not be possible — prices that are deflating can't also be inflating. In quotidian usage, however, it's entirely possible for $4 eggs or gasoline to be indicia of inflation, even if they were $4.50 previously."
If you have a love of lexicography, check out Axios' explainer on the language of inflation.
5. Finally, food prices here in Alabama are 9% higher than the national average. That seems counterintuitive in a fairly low-income state where other cost of living markers (e.g. housing) tend to be lower than other parts of America. Well, that's because Alabama is one of three states that still charge sales tax on groceries.
Read more at WBRC.
