It’s not greed, it’s just ““international factors”” that are causing them to put prices up. Russia invaded Ukraine so they have to charge extra for a sandwich of course!
Okay perhaps you’re joking, but this is something that people across the world are not aware of or don’t want to acknowledge. Ukraine is a major agricultural exporter, and a lot of their produce go to farmers across the world. The supply of many Ukrainian produce, especially grain, had been restricted which increased global food price and has not gone down to pre-war level. Fewer supply but more demand leads to higher price. Including in the link I gave, it mentioned that if the war is sustained for long, it could further worsen food crisis in many developing countries. There is a reason why Africa sent delegates to try to mediate on the conflict. But they won’t tell you that it is because they rely on stable global food price to feed their people, and much of chicken feeds used by African farmers are imported from Ukraine! People don’t see the full picture at how integrally interconnected we all are.
When a country sneeze, we all catch cold.
While that all sounds sane and rational, it’s a sad fact the price trend does not appear to go both ways. Do you believe that food prices will go back down after supply goes up?
The rational part of me thinks “yes, of course”. The cynical part of me thinks, “no, of course not, aritificially limiting supplies would be too profitable.”
While that’s definitely a factor in global food trends, I don’t see that impacting the US price of food as drastically as companies thinking they can get away with raising prices.
My reasoning is the web of tarrifs and subsidies that the US uses to stabilize domestic markets, prop up farmers, and generally ensure the US is the key grain player. Shortly after the war started the US and Canada also saw a better than average harvest of the grains that Ukraine typically exports.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU02120301 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCU3112113112111 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIUFDSL
The domestic prices paid for wheat and flour both started to fall shortly after the Ukraine invasion, while food prices maintained a rocketing trajectory without much if any changes, with only a slight decrease in the rate of increase about a year after.
While protectionist US food policies are chock full of horrible problems, in this case they should have insulated people from radical changes in the availability and price of wheat.
That consumer prices have risen despite falling costs paid to producers is a big indicator that the cost increases are due to something else in the US.
None of this applies to countries that are dependent on grain imports who have to rely on the global markets instead of adjusting export profitability to stabilize things.
Bread costs are a tiny % of prepared food. You are mostly paying for rent and labor of the employees.
Who, thanks to COVID, realized they were all getting fucked and did a silent rebellion and now make about half of what a professional office worker makes. Those dastardly socialists! 😠😠😠
Trying to spin this into Africa doesn’t care about Ukraine except for the uptick in the cost of food price is crazy
i imagine if your country and the western world wanted to end the war, it could but they have no interest due to how profitable war is, so here we are
