Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Fight the food smears! 

I'm in Honolulu which has some of the highest food prices in the country due to transportation costs. But I smell meat on the street. That appears not to be true in Houston:
The price of food has forced many Houstonians to give up their plans for a barbecue on the Fourth of July.

"I think I'm just going to eat beans. I'm not going to eat barbecue this year, no meat," says one man who says beef has become too expensive.

...While many people say food costs have forced them to scale back their plans, food price experts say some of the most popular items at barbecues have not become more expensive since last year. They say only about a quarter of the products in the grocery store contain substantial percentages of corn or wheat.

"Soda prices haven't gone up, beer prices have not gone up, hot dog and some processed food prices have not gone up," says Brooke Coleman, the Executive Director of the New Fuels Alliance and a contributor to the web site, foodpricetruth.org.

Coleman says the price of beef, chicken, pork and bread products will run about three percent more than in 2007. He blames transportation costs, saying the average chicken travels more than a thousand miles from farm to market.
Foodpricetruth is a site sponsored by the biofuels industry to fight the "smear campaign" of grocers that are blaming them for food price increases. Smells like rent-seeking.

According to BLS, food prices second half of 2007 rose less than 2% in Honolulu.

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