<http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-food16may16,1,1623796.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage>http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-food16may16,1,1623796.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
Food prices eat deeper into wallets
Grocery costs in Southern California are up 5.7%, outpacing the U.S., and rising at their highest rate in years. By Jerry Hirsch Times Staff Writer
May 16, 2007
First gas, now food. The household budget in Southern California is getting no relief these days.
Southland residents already pay among the highest grocery prices in the nation, and the forecast is for even higher costs. Federal statistics released Tuesday for April show that food prices in Southern California rose 5.7% from a year earlier.
Prices are going up for much of what gets dumped into the grocery cart including cereals, bread, bacon, pork roasts, chicken, eggs, cookies, hot dogs, oranges, soda pop and dried beans.
Nationally, food prices rose 3.9% in April compared with the same month in 2006, and the outlook is equally chilling wherever you shop. It is happening for many reasons: inflation, drought, freezing weather, even the rising cost of corn highly sought after not only as ingredients for thousands of food products but also to make ethanol.
Food prices in 2007 are increasing at their highest rate in years.
"We are going to see grocery store prices show one of the most rapid increases in the last 15 years or so," said Patrick Jackman, an economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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