Here's an interesting piece. I think we all know by "gut feel" that food prices rarely go back down once they go up -- even if the reason they went up in the first place (like high gas prices) has gone away partially. Some insights:
[Food] companies hesitate to hike prices because it might push consumers to into the arms of a competitor, or to cheaper alternatives.
But once a price hike is in place, it virtually never goes away.
Yeah, don't I know it...
Sadly I note the end of the four-boxes-of-mac-and-cheese-for-a-dollar era.
Posted by: | October 20, 2008 at 10:05 PM
Prices for food probably will never go down because it helps stabilize the economy. All they will do is incease the taxes on food, which in a sense will be a rise in food costs.
Posted by: Donny Gamble | October 20, 2008 at 10:43 PM
Well, no taxes on the food in Minnesota (or clothes either for that matter) so that is no concern for us.
As for food prices, they have dipping to previous lows in certain sales, but the retails show no sign of coming down.
Posted by: Nick Spartz | October 21, 2008 at 12:06 AM
Dog food! We either need a smaller dog or she's getting cut to one cup a day. A 40 lb bag of Kirkland went from $18.97 to $25.96 in about 2 months. Good thing she's such a good companion.
Posted by: Norma | October 21, 2008 at 01:41 AM
Food prices really should come down now after the decrease in the cost of fuel!
Posted by: Goldie | October 21, 2008 at 09:30 AM
With groceries, the more common outcome in times of inflation is for a grocery store to have the same price on a smaller amount of stuff. Consumerist calls this the "grocery shrink ray".
One other thing that this blog entry reminded me of is airline tickets. When fuel costs are high, airlines have been known to tack on countless "fuel surcharges", usually announced by one airline and matched within hours by all others. But when fuel costs go down, I've never seen any airline offer a "fuel discount". I guess I'll just keep waiting.
Posted by: Bad_Brad | October 21, 2008 at 12:32 PM
Well, economics say prices will come down. It might just take longer than it did for prices to go up.
However, with near monopolies like Proctor and Gamble or Phillips/Morris/Kraft, there is hardly any competition to push prices downward. What we do in the US isn't exactly capitalism, and it results in monopolies having tremendous power.
Posted by: AdamCO | October 21, 2008 at 12:49 PM