The price of food has been one of the driving forces behind inflation over the last couple of years. In March, however, food prices overall stayed pretty flat.
The price of groceries dropped slightly from the month before for the first time in almost two years. The price of eating at restaurants, though, went up. For a while, grocery prices had risen notably faster than restaurant prices. But not anymore. Why?
Grocery prices started shooting up almost as soon as the pandemic began. First, meat and dairy. Eventually, most everything else.
“Some of it was supply chain congestion … and, of course, energy costs,” said William Masters at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts University. He also said supply chains are mostly flowing again and energy costs have dropped.
“And so we’re seeing prices come back down. Egg prices down, dairy prices down, fruits and vegetable prices down,” he said.