Inflation could stifle summertime cookouts, with meat prices up 12.3 percent in May, data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.
The grilling price spike is a symptom of an 8.6. percent year over year increase last month on all goods, the Consumer Price Index reflecting the highest inflation rate in 41 years. This is also the twelfth straight month of inflation above five percent.
Here are some of the price increases bogging down barbecues:
- Beef and veal: up 10.2 percent
- Ground beef: up 13.6 percent
- Beef steaks: up 6.6 percent
- Pork: up 13.3 percent
- Pork chops: up 11 percent
- Hot dogs: up 10.4 percent
- Bacon, breakfast sausage: up 15.6 percent
- Chicken: up 17.4 percent
Not only are meat prices higher, the supplies needed to prepare meat are becoming more costly as well. The price of propane, kerosene, and firewood grew a whopping 28 percent.
You can’t even catch a break on the rolls. Prices are up 9.7 percent, the BLS data show.
Overall price increases in May are much more drastic than anticipated, defying expectations that inflation had peaked in March. The trend is true of meat prices and the cost of propane, kerosene, and firewood, all of which either slightly diminished or narrowly increased in the month of April, only to surge in May.
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