Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Chicken prices

Yesterday I had occasion to go into my favorite restaurant-supply store (Chef's Store) for a minor purchase. While there, I inquired about the cost of a 40-lb. box of boneless skinless chicken breasts. (I'm beginning to think of this as my benchmark item for tracking inflation.) I like canning up chicken, but the prices have been too high lately.

 
Three months ago, if you recall, I called for the price of this item and was told it was $135. I did not purchase the chicken. Before that, in January, the price was $110. I didn't purchase chicken then either. (And boy do I regret it.)

However yesterday, the price had zoomed to $177/box. Major ouch.

So let's track this, shall we? For a 40-lb. box of boneless skinless chicken breasts:

• Jan. 12: $110

• Feb. 26: $135

• May 31: $177

Unless my math is off, that's about a 62% increase in four months. Meanwhile gas in our neck of the woods is about $4.95/gallon.

I honestly don't know how people are coping.

23 comments:

  1. And don't forget that our inflation numbers don't include groceries!

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  2. For retail, non-commercial customers, Chef's Store is not often the best price...on anything. Only when they run sales are they a true deal. Winco often beats them by a mile. Boneless Chicken breast in ~4# flats was $2.7x/lb today.

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    1. Maybe my math is off but isn't that $278.00 for 40#? So, $101.00 more than she paid.

      kathy in MS

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    2. That will teach me to do math in my head when tired. That should be just over $111.00 for 40#.

      Either is high for me because I prefer dark meat and so buy leg quarters. The price is up here and it is $.99/lb.

      kathy in MS

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  3. What choice is there? One either pays the price or does without. I feel really sad for people who have children to feed and have limited resources. I read somewhere lately that more and more retired people are going back to work, and I wonder if some of them are doing it to help out their offspring.

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  4. Our grocery store chain here in Texas has not increased their store brand frozen chicken breasts yet. Still getting them 5 LBS for $10.62. I canned 20 pounds the other day.

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  5. Don't worry the government says everything is ok.

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    1. It is not just our government. Global inflation, due to pandemic disruptions and war in Ukraine, is happening everywhere.

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  6. I live alone so from time to time I eat canned soup. A can of Progresso or Campbell Chunky gives me two meals. In August and September last fall I could get Campbell 4 cans for $5 and Progresso for $.99 a can.. I’m not sure why, but some impulse caused me to buy far more than I usually do. Now the Campbell is $2.29 a can and Progresso $1.99. That is $1 a can higher. I realize that I hit a sale, but still that is a huge rise in price. Maybe one of my best investments since I have enough for next winter too.

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    1. When I'm sick or lazy and want soup I combine 1 small can GV chicken and 2 cans GV mixed veggies. It makes more soup with a lot more meat and veggies than any store bought soup. More nutrition for no more effort or money . A doctor told me about this long ago.

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  7. The prices are not quite so high here yet for chicken, but I paid well over $6 a gallon for gas and noted that diesel was $7.24 a gallon! I have purchased an incubator and have a rooster who is (ahem) good at his job. That is my back up plan for if (when) chicken becomes too costly. I also bought a pressure canner and am learning how to use it.

    KinCa

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  8. The rise in chicken prices are because of the pandemic of bird flu affected by the useless killing of 10's of thousands of chickens. Other food shortages are blamed on Ukraine, diesel ,natural gas, & gasoline shortages are Russias fault, mass shootings in Texas & Oklahoma are cause by handgun and AR15 owners in Idaho & Montana, and I wont continue cause everyone here already knows the scenario. It's all planned, What could possibly go wrong! I know one thing for sure, it's going to get worse before it gets much worse. The daily dribble coming out of their mouths is simply unbelievable, You can get a more comprehensive conversation from a rock. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor.

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  9. I sincerely believe that anyone should stock up on everything, Now...regardless of the price... because those prices are not going down. They will go higher every week. Forget getting bargains. Just get food.

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    1. Exactly what i did when the pandemic started 18 months after becoming 1/2 body paralysed...

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  10. People don't know how to adjust to hard times anymore.
    When I grew up here in the deep South, we did not have ac. The schools did not have ac. There were times as a child I literally cried myself to sleep at night from being so hot. But woke up to a new day every morning.
    We went to school barefoot in the warm weather and I'm female. Girls did too. It helped you stay cooler. Now I keep bottles of water in the freezer for power outages which come all too frequently.
    Back to school in the " good old days" . The heat didn't always work at school either, or work well enough. My coat stayed behind me in my desk where I could snuggle into it if I got cold. Everyone else had their coats with them too.
    There were no free school lunches. Or breakfasts. No snacks. You brought whatever you ate during the day or paid for it. I saw some other children who brought bread and nothing else.
    If todays kids had to go to school with such "hardships", their parents would be up in arms.

    We are all so used to comforts of heat and air and whatever food we want or going where we want when we want it's hard to adjust. It really is.
    My parents only grocery shopped once a month and fought over how much was spent. The budget was for flour, meal, salt, coffee, sugar and rarely much else. Bread for sandwiches to go to school with during school months. The freezer was full of things we grew or raised or hunted. And we always ate well. We ate meat o Sundays

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  11. Retired and an annual increase of no more than 3%. Last years was 1.9%. If my math is correct, I'm falling behind.

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  12. I paid .79 cents per lb. yesterday for chicken leg quarters..bought 10lbs. I will make a couple of gallons of broth and can the chicken. I'm 78 and I'm thinking about going back to work, I can still walk and talk and cogitate numbers. When I go to our local market, there are few young people working, most are older people; not as old a I am, but still of retirement age. Our Dollar General closes early or sometimes doesn't open at all because there's no one to man the register or stock the shelves.. A tsunami of heartbreak is heading our way, so just keep on getting ready.. every little thing you can put up or put away will help.. food to clothing to seeds to car parts ...whatever you can buy ... money will be worthless very soon, think about barter products. Sorry, enough of this old geezer's thought. God Bless and good luck.

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  13. If some people are determined to go 'off the grid', then doing so means not going to a store to "buy" chicken ... then go home and can it. Going completely off the grid means raising chickens, killing them like my grandmother did, de-feathering them, boiling them ... and then doing what was necessary with them. Eating, canning, etc. That is true OFF THE GRID. Don't complain about the price of chicken when you can raise them yourself. My grandmother also made her own butter, did not have a washing machine (used a board) and always made sure her 7 children had clean clothes, didn't have a vacuum cleaner but her floors were spotless from scrubbing them on her hands and knees. Now days, when most people say they are living off the grid, they really are not. They are still living with extreme luxuries my grandparents never imagined.

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    1. Obviously this article is not about being "off the grid". Preparing doesn't mean being off the grid. It means being prepared for whatever you see coming at you.

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  14. I sat down recently and pulled four years' worth of bill and grocery history. Our house hasn't changed nor has our consumption (kept the same house temp, buy the same foods, no major purchases, etc.). I wanted to see if I could determine if there was an annual price increase in any of our expenses. The first three years were fairly steady year over year. Then starting in late 2020/early 2021, an uptick began. Slowly all of these costs have risen. I noted an average increase of 10% minimum but some expenses jumped by more than 45%. One expense increasing is manageable. However, as the expenses across the board rise, things get far trickier to manage. Compounding the increase in our expenses, our income has been stagnant across these same years. Therefore, we are being squeezed between significant increases in our expenses while our income is flat and arguably declining. The numbers are stark for us and we are actively putting in corrective measures. However, it is a frustrating set of circumstances. We have tried to do “all the right things” but now we feel like we are being forced to make decisions we wouldn’t otherwise make.
    We also have a close set of aging relatives we are keeping a watchful eye on. In years past we have seen what tightened economic circumstances can bring people to decide to do – eat less, skip meals entirely, cut medication dosages in half or more to “stretch” these medications, skip doctor’s appointments, turn off their heating or cooling sources, etc. Decisions which individually seem harmless or with minimal consequences but long term these strategies can cause even more problems.
    We have worked hard to budget and to manage our money but we are growing more concerned. What previously seemed manageable feels like it is spiraling out of our control, putting us in a reactionary position, wondering how low will it all go, where will it end?

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