The Price of Food Jumps Again in November, What’s in Your Basket?

Month-over-month CPI food prices from the BLS, chart by Mish. 

Month-Over-Month Details For November 

  • Meat, Fish, Poultry, Eggs: -0.2%, up 9 of 11 months in 2022
  • Cereals and Bakery:+1.1%, up 11 of 11 months in 2022
  • Dairy: +0.7 percent: up 11 of 11 months in 2022
  • Fruits and Vegetables: up 1.4%, up 9 of 11 months in 2022
  • Nonalcoholic Beverages: -0.3%, up 10 of 11 months in 2022
  • Other Food at Home: -0.1%, up 10 of 11 months in 2022

Three Major Food Categories 

Trifecta and Perfecta

  • Trifecta: Food and beverages, food at home, and food away from home all rose 0.5 percent in November. 
  • Perfecta: The price of food in all three major categories rose every month so far this year. Cereals and diary are also up every month this year. 

The minimum rise for food away from home in any month this year is 0.3 percent. It’s 0.5 percent for food and beverages and also 0.5 percent for food at home.

2022 Medal Winner Leaders 

Cereal appears headed for the gold medal for sustained gains. It rose at least 0.8 percent every month this year. But it needs another good performance in December. Can it hold on?

Dairy is a strong favorite to win the gold and silver medals for the biggest month-over-month gains of 2.4 percent in April backed up up by an even bigger 2.6 percent in May. 

Cereal rates to get the bronze medal for a 2.1 percent rise in June.

CPI With a Spotlight on Food

Year-Over-Year the CPI is up 7.1 percent. 

Food and beverage, food at home, and food away from home are up 10.3 percent, 12.0 percent, and 8.5 percent respectively.

CPI Six Food Categories Year-Over-Year 

Heading into the final month of the year, it’s a tight race for the 2022 year-over-year gold medal.

Cereals and dairy are tied for the lead at 16.4 percent with other food at home a distant third at 13.9 percent.

I will award the 2022 medal winners next month. Place your bets. Will it be cereal or dairy? Can both hold on for perfectas? 

CPI Cools Significantly in November But Rent and Food Still Sharply Increasing

The CPI cooled in November but significant hot spots remain, notably shelter and food.

For more on the CPI, please see CPI Cools Significantly in November But Rent and Food Still Sharply Increasing

Apologies for the title. The CPI did not really cool. Rather, the year-over-year and month-over-month increases slowed. Shelter is significant. See link for details.

Many expected the cost of shelter to decline significantly, but I was not one of them.

For my shelter and rent analysis ahead of the CPI report, please see Ignore the Pundits, Don’t Expect Big Declines in the Price of Rent

Also note Producer Prices Rise 0.3 Percent in November Led by Services and Food

This post originated at MishTalk.Com.

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spa sidechats
spa sidechats
1 year ago
Food prices go down considerably when people learn to cook. I can make the best large pizza in town for a couple bucks as opposed to the best sold in town for $20 but if poor people want to pay the $20 and complain about it then their money their choice.
KidHorn
KidHorn
1 year ago
Reply to  spa sidechats
Pizza is dirt cheap compared to other fares. I can get an extra large papa johns with 2 toppings for $11 when a local team does well. A Chinese food dinner costs $14 and I’m hungry again 2 hours after eating it.
RonJ
RonJ
1 year ago
“Many expected the cost of shelter to decline significantly, but I was not one of them.”
Biden says, come on in, jump the border. All these “new Americans” as Biden calls them, need to live somewhere.
RonJ
RonJ
1 year ago
Reply to  RonJ
“Project Homekey provided local governments about $2.8 billion total to sustain 12,676 housing units across the state,” ABC 10 reported. Homekey is more of a low-income housing program.”
“Hearn says her community of Cameron Park has been targeted for Project
Roomkey hotels for homeless. But, community members noticed some of the
“homeless” in the shelters were covered with prison tattoos, and
coincidentally elderly people were getting robbed in the nearby Safeway
parking lot. She said it was obvious the state was releasing felons into
the hotels.”
StukiMoi
StukiMoi
1 year ago
Dairy and Cereals are basics. Inferior goods (economically speaking, not wrt healthiness….). Back when Americans could afford meat and fish, those prices went up and up and up. Now that we’re Venezuela full stop, sewage water running down the street, is where the bidding war action is increasingly concentrated.
Zardoz
Zardoz
1 year ago
Reply to  StukiMoi
The world is terrible! I went outside and it killed me! (It got better)
StukiMoi
StukiMoi
1 year ago
Reply to  Zardoz
“The world is terrible!”
For anyone with simultaneous visibility beyond his own navel, and any sort of standards; it most certainly is. By near any American historical standard. Increasingly by any standard, period.
It’s hardly killing those of us who are such brilliant investors that we strategically invested in the right grandparents; but it sure is killing lots and lots of those who didn’t invest as wisely.
Doug78
Doug78
1 year ago
Reply to  StukiMoi
Do you live in San Francisco?
StukiMoi
StukiMoi
1 year ago
Reply to  Doug78
On and off, I suppose. I’m in Europe now.
Doug78
Doug78
1 year ago
Reply to  StukiMoi
And have you been to Venezuela lately?
StukiMoi
StukiMoi
1 year ago
Reply to  Doug78
Lately is pushing it. They used to sell very cheap marine diesel there. For all I know they may still do. Haven’t been worth the risk for decades.
As if it matters. It’s cold on Mars. I haven’t been there lately, neither. Which, strangely enough, doesn’t make it any less cold. Nor does it make sleeping outside in San Francisco, on account of nothing other than complete economic illiteracy being all that’s left of the US, particularly warm. Even if perhaps a bit warmer than ditto on Mars.
Doug78
Doug78
1 year ago
Reply to  StukiMoi
Then how can you compare them? If you had ever lived in a truly poor country and then in the US and Europe you would easily see the difference and would understand why they will do about anything to escape to the US and Europe so your statement is mystifying unless it was said off the cuff.
StukiMoi
StukiMoi
1 year ago
Reply to  Doug78
“They” will do anything to escape to what they grew up remembering/believing/being told/seeing in the Movies is like.
And: “they” want Western nominal wages, sent home to where said wages buys something.
Westerners don’t have the option to be paid in San Francisco, while paying for a house for their family in Colombia.
Besides: I can even, wow! compare the temperature on Mars to the one in San Francisco. Now ain’t that something?
Doug78
Doug78
1 year ago
Reply to  StukiMoi
You mean you don’t send part of your salary in SF to your poor parents in Chicago? What type of son are you? I have been to Chicago in winter and it is like Mars.
xbizo
xbizo
1 year ago
Business Insider story –
Nearly half of young adults in the US are living at home with their parents, and all that saved rent is fueling a luxury boom (msn.com)
8dots
8dots
1 year ago
Fun flying your family to VT in a private jet. Chef cooking Thanksgiving meals, serving wine in your chalet. Paying for lift tickets, doing GS.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
1 year ago
Reply to  8dots
Or you could go to CO, WY, MT where there is really serious skiing and better après-ski.
It’s nice to ski down for more than a continuous half-hour before you get in the lift queue again.
Doug78
Doug78
1 year ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
Try the Alps. Some places have a 6,000 foot vertical drop. You just keep going and going.
TexasTim65
TexasTim65
1 year ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
Agreed. Once you ski out west (add Utah, California and British Colombia to your list of great places to go) you can never ever ski again in the East.
If your looking for an off the path place, try Taos, New Mexico. Not crowded and the nearby town is small (6K) so it’s a different feel than those areas that are in big cities and the skiing is top notch.
vanderlyn
vanderlyn
1 year ago
Reply to  TexasTim65
flaggstaff AZ has wonderful skiing. college kids in bathing suits at the base. italian alps the prettiest mountains and villages and great food. nothing compares in new world.
desertsteve
desertsteve
1 year ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
Flagstaff is “ok” not really comparable to CO or UT.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
1 year ago
I await the bodegas selling eggs – individually.
Doug78
Doug78
1 year ago
Have you seen the price of caviar these days? The real Russian stuff has more than tripled since the invasion. The price of a good private chief has gone through the roof also. The salary they ask now is obscene. Why without us rich people they would be flipping hamburgers at some greasy plebian dive but are they grateful? No they are not! Cost of having your private jet has also gone up considerably. You plebs might think us wealthy people have it made but let me tell you that sometimes I wish I had a simple life like yours owning nothing and being happier for it because wealth is a burden and a curse.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
1 year ago
Reply to  Doug78
Sometimes you can’t even get foie gras at any price.
How is my chef supposed to make an acceptable Beef Wellington?
Doug78
Doug78
1 year ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
We share the same pain. It is a travesty that society has put us into this position through no fault of our own.
Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
1 year ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
Foie gras is not good for cholesterol anyways, try some oat flakes instead. There, inflation act is for your health.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
1 year ago
Chef puts oat flakes in the haggis.
And occasionally he does morning porridge for the kitchen staff.
Doug78
Doug78
1 year ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
It’s important for your staff to remain healthy and should be treated as well as your favored palfrey.
TexasTim65
TexasTim65
1 year ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
Plenty of fresh foie gras wandering around in my neighborhood here in South Florida.
All you need to do is hit it with your car and get your hands a bit dirty removing it from the carcass 🙂
Christoball
Christoball
1 year ago
Reply to  Doug78
It is terrible, nobody wants to force feed geese anymore, I tell you nobody wants to work anymore. We need more immigrants to work the jobs that people are too lazy to do. (sarc) Oh the humanity….. life without Foie Gras will never be the same.
Doug78
Doug78
1 year ago
Reply to  Christoball
More immigrants are what we need. My team of gardeners just asked for a raise. They have no compassion for me their employer. Have to go. I am off to my neighbors Megan and Harry for tea. See you later.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
1 year ago
Reply to  Doug78
As I was telling King Charles yesterday, I find name droppers quite rude.
Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
1 year ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
I envy you being first names with him. I am addressing him, your majesty, when we go for a drink.
davebarnes2
davebarnes2
1 year ago
We have not changed our grocery shopping. I don’t sweat the small stuff.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
1 year ago
Reply to  davebarnes2
Generally speaking, the small stuff in the groceries no longer provide enough energy to work up a sweat.
Zardoz
Zardoz
1 year ago
Reply to  davebarnes2
Same… 20 bucks a week don’t hurt.
A 5k mortgage payment could make it hurt though.
8dots
8dots
1 year ago
Drink lukewarm water in the morning, after light exercise, before 500-600 cal from up to x3 types of fruits. Then green leaf, tomato and reddish, before the main course at lunch. If u skip on red/white meat, eggs, chocolate… u will cut your healthcare and pharma bills. Heart attacks, stroke, cancer…boost the GDP pie.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
1 year ago
Reply to  8dots
Exactly.
Don’t ever eat anything that tastes good or has a pleasing texture.
You will need good health to manage your final years exercising in your walker.
Or,
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow …
StukiMoi
StukiMoi
1 year ago
Reply to  8dots
Aside from actual hospitals, I have still yet to find anywhere with more sickly people than at “health” food shops…..
I suppose I’m just spoiled. Now that we’re Venezuela, and outright famine is becoming the newest twitter hashtag for most Americans; I bet most of those guys are even sicker than the average ghost-pale Noe Valley health food groupie.
radar
radar
1 year ago
Reply to  8dots
I considered eating healthy so that I could live longer, but then I realized I’d be making myself miserable just so I could be miserable longer.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
1 year ago
I wonder what is going on at the boutique groceries? I make a point of not shopping there–the enhanced retailing experience is not worth the extra price. I can only take so much fruit/veg displayed in cane baskets before I start laughing.
The mid-level groceries (Kroger/Publix) still seem to be heavily trafficked where I am. However, their prices are significantly higher than Walmart. I am currently buying in bulk in preparation for my annual pilgrimage to the Bahamas–think five-liter box wine, not corked 🙂
Christoball
Christoball
1 year ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
I tease my kids about some of the places they shop. I tell them that those stores are where only white people shop. Sad but true. Also they seem to be where the only customers are liberal white people. So much for inclusion.
Zardoz
Zardoz
1 year ago
Reply to  Christoball
I pay extra to not have to navigate around land whales and their shrieking hellspawn.
MarkraD
MarkraD
1 year ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
I’m calling BS here… I just KNOW you shop at Wholefoods.
How the hell else do you buy your organic, environmentally safe, plant based seaweed meatballs?
Stop lying!
.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
1 year ago
Reply to  MarkraD
I get my seaweed direct from the Gulf Stream, plus lots of Mahi and the occasional sushi-grade tuna.
TexasTim65
TexasTim65
1 year ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
There is a very close by Walmart that I am now hitting for anything that’s not fresh (cans, packages, boxed stuff etc). As you noted, the prices are a lot better than even the mid level grocers (Publix/WinnDixie here in south Florida) with the added bonus that their ‘roll back for the holidays’ prices has meant I can still get cases of beer like Bud Light (for my hockey team) for 18 bucks instead of 21-26 bucks at those other grocers. I go in very off hours (its a 24 hr one) to avoid land whales and shrieking kids and other scummiest wastes of humanity.
I hit farmers markets for some fresh produce or mid level grocers for the rest plus my meat.
vanderlyn
vanderlyn
1 year ago
year over Covid plague years inflation up huge. fed printed 25 years worth of currency in 2 short spanish flu(covid, plague) years. people spending like a post war boom. jobs plentiful for decades due to demographic dying off of middlebrow boomers. fed will be raising rates for a long long time. mish, you nail the r/e market. your fed and inflation calls all washed up. nobodies perfect. i remind myself of this every day. most of my trades are losers. hold the winners, sell the losers. gaming and trader theory 101. i relish my mistakes. always. 40 years of college also humbles me to how ignorant i am in so many wonderful subjects in science and arts. hat tip and happy holidays mish and company.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
1 year ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
Easy peasy.
Simply sell the winners just before they become losers.
Nothing to it.
vanderlyn
vanderlyn
1 year ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
trend following trading for decades. simple as hell. difficult for many.
whirlaway
whirlaway
1 year ago
Well, the government will now say that people live inside an egg shell, drinking soda. Voila! No inflation!
shamrock
shamrock
1 year ago
You can’t say we weren’t warned, extreme weather is affecting the food supply.
KidHorn
KidHorn
1 year ago
Reply to  shamrock
Can you provide some examples?
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
1 year ago
Reply to  KidHorn
I’ve noticed a lot more road kill.
shamrock
shamrock
1 year ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Rice and almonds in California, drought. Cotton in Texas, drought. Cattle in Kansas and Texas, heat and drought. Wheat in great plains, flood. Citrus in Florida, hurricanes. It’s on and on, all over the world.
KidHorn
KidHorn
1 year ago
Reply to  shamrock
Show me the long term data that shows what you wrote is true.
Because the first thing I checked, almond production in California, shows you’re full of it.
amigator
amigator
1 year ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Appears that the almonds are enjoying the Climate Change!
randocalrissian
randocalrissian
1 year ago
Just go get a raise that’s bigger than inflation, problem solved.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
1 year ago
Who needs a raise? Inflation Compensation coupons will be issued any day now.
Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
1 year ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
Just wait for the Inflation Reduction Act to kicks in, and inflation will bite the dust.
OUdaveguy
OUdaveguy
1 year ago
Shrinkflation on food everywhere; restaurant portion sizes getting smaller has been widely reported. At the grocery, miniscule cereal boxes that are so narrow now they won’t stand upright on the shelves, along with many examples of canned goods shrinking; even a debate over whether McDonalds is shrinking the size of their menu items beyond the confirmed smaller fries size…..I worked grocery throughout college. Those “Family Size” cereal boxes are actually a small box of cereal circa 1995…..
HippyDippy
HippyDippy
1 year ago
Reply to  OUdaveguy
I really am trying to figure out what you are calling food. I know for sure that McDonalds doesn’t serve real food. Then again, there’s a reason the Standard American Diet spells SAD.
vanderlyn
vanderlyn
1 year ago
Reply to  HippyDippy
amerikans mostly eat garbage.
HippyDippy
HippyDippy
1 year ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
Most of the food that Americans love makes me sick when I eat it. I have no idea how they do it.
vanderlyn
vanderlyn
1 year ago
Reply to  HippyDippy
watch the great documentary free on youtube. “century of the self”. they sold amerikans to just buy buy buy, any garbage that was packaged and marketed. it’s a nation of heffers. i sometimes want to put a dozen donuts in a bear trap in my hood in brooklyn to see how many keepers i can bag for the day. i’d need a fork lift.
HippyDippy
HippyDippy
1 year ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
Haven’t watched that, but I’ve studied that for a while.. It’s because we live in a narcisistic construct. It’s why all governments follow the same self-destructive path.. They can’t create, only destroy. And they have no imagination. We copied Rome, so study their decline. Very similar in many ways. Washington, D.C. was originally called Rome and shares a common latitude. However, that’s probably not the system’s design, as the reason they moved there was because the people hated them in Philadelphia and they had to run away, so that’s why they went there. Funny how our schools don’t mention how hated our founders were. In college, even when I went (92-97), it wasn’t exactly advertised. But I am a curious man.
amigator
amigator
1 year ago
Reply to  OUdaveguy
This is all good news. We need much smaller portions even though we are paying more and getting less in the long run or medical bills should decrease significantly with a much smaller obese population. I won’t hold my breath but could Capitalism actually be working?
TexasTim65
TexasTim65
1 year ago
Reply to  OUdaveguy
Shrinkflation definitely on items they can get away with it (cereal boxes as you noted are among the worst offenders as the standard size is incredibly small).
On others, they can’t because it’s sold by volume (gallon, liter) or weight (a pound of apples is still a pound of apples).
This is why it seems like eggs, milk, fresh produce prices are skyrocketing while cereal doesn’t appear to have become a lot more expensive.
Zardoz
Zardoz
1 year ago
Lets make another billion people and see what happens.
Christoball
Christoball
1 year ago
Reply to  Zardoz
Lets let another 5 million sneak across our border and see what happens.
Zardoz
Zardoz
1 year ago
Reply to  Christoball
They don’t eat on the other side?
KidHorn
KidHorn
1 year ago
Price rises abated because of energy. Something that won’t likely continue. Eventually inflation will slow because people won’t be able to pay 10% more for goods when their salaries are going up 5%.
whirlaway
whirlaway
1 year ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Well, they can, if they are given some more credit cards!
LawrenceBird
LawrenceBird
1 year ago
Until someone solves bird flu and drought and ill timed storms, food prices will remain under pressure.
Avery
Avery
1 year ago
Yuengling
HippyDippy
HippyDippy
1 year ago
Reply to  Avery
Thank God my weed dealer has managed to maintain a zero percent price inflation. And yes, I checked for shrinkflation!
vanderlyn
vanderlyn
1 year ago
Reply to  HippyDippy
ha ha. me too.
HippyDippy
HippyDippy
1 year ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
It also makes all of this clown world business far more amusing! lol
vanderlyn
vanderlyn
1 year ago
Reply to  HippyDippy
business is down the list of important things in my life. art and science and human interactions much more for me. as is weed world…..investing. with this attitude, i’ve found it so easy to be a stock trader and r/e investor for decades. i don’t really give a hoot about the game all too much.
HippyDippy
HippyDippy
1 year ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
I left the stock world June 25th, 2003. I don’t even consider stocks an investment. Investing in myself is far more profitable for me.

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