As Beef Prices Rise, Americans Turn to Chicken
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Here's your money briefing for Tuesday, May 14th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. Your grocery bill is taking a sizable bite out of your household budget, and the rising cost of beef is a big part of it. That shifted the spotlight to chicken.
Whenever food prices go up, especially among the different meat items, chicken is always the bargain. Even if chicken prices tick up and the consumers may feel that, it's still much of a bargain compared to steak right now.
We'll talk with our reporter Patrick Thomas about what this means for your next trip to the grocery store after the break.
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Americans are buying more chicken as the price of beef and groceries continue to rise. Wall Street Journal reporter Patrick Thomas joins me. Patrick, how much are people spending on food these days?
The share of U.S.
How are rising grocery costs affecting Americans' food budgets?
consumers' income spent on food is at a three-decade high, and that's been prompting people to shift spending toward cheaper private label items, different meats, trade down at the meat case. People are really noticing. Over the last couple years, really now, food prices have been going up, and people have started to notice the high price at retail.
When food prices rise, how does that usually affect meat that people buy in the supermarket?
This has gone on for a while. Whenever food prices go up, especially among the different meat items, chicken is always the bargain. Chicken and eggs are actually the two of them. Eggs being the cheapest, but in terms of the center of the plate protein, chicken's the winner, usually, when it comes to high inflation.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Exactly. How does the price of chicken compare to other meat products?
It's still a bargain, even if chicken prices tick up and the consumers may feel that. It's still much of a bargain compared to steak right now. For example, a pound of ground beef can cost you six, seven dollars and you can get chicken thighs, which is growing in popularity in the U.S. for six dollars and you can get more meat that way.
So why are the prices of chicken and other meats moving in such a sharply opposite direction?
Beef is a little bit more complex, and we have a shortage of cattle in this country right now. And over the last couple of years, ranchers have been shrinking the size of their herd for a number of different reasons that would take another episode to get into. But what that means is there's less supply. And that's raising the price of beef at the wholesale level. So meatpackers are paying more for their cattle. And that's raising the price at the retail level ultimately. And that's led to much higher beef prices. For example, uncooked ground beef, that's up 12% from what it was a year ago in March. And that's been a steady increase over pretty much two years now.
You mentioned chicken thighs and wings before. What kinds of price changes have we seen among different cuts of chicken?
Chicken prices have actually been ticking up a little bit.
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