Food Prices, Shortages & Inflation - The Trash Index

[Bubblingbrooks]

I don't blame you for this attitude. As a consumer, I would LOVE to only buy pastured beef, freerange chicken, etc... but my budget doesn't always allow it. I love supporting local farmers and so does abi. But, like me, she can't always afford it. As soon as we can though, she is buying direct from a local dairy and I am over at a farm 5 minutes from my house buying all the organic goodness we can

Unfortunately that's how my budget goes too... a 5 pound chicken at the farmer's market is about $25-30... at the grocery store a whole chicken is about $10... when my weekly food budget is $80, I can't afford to buy the meat from the market.

Goat's milk I do buy at the market because I can buy a pint for Aeryn ($2.00) vs. the grocery store that only sells it by the gallon for $18.

My neighbour sells eggs for $2.50/dozen, that's $1.50 less than the grocery store sells regular white eggs for so of course I'm going to buy her free-range eggs from the chickens that wander over to visit sometimes

I do find now that I'm more concious of what I'm eating, it is costing us more to eat weekly... but we're feeling a lot better about it. I don't mind paying for good food and I would love to get to the point where I can eat whatever I wanted without worrying about how much it costs. Really I want to live somewhere that I can produce my own food so our grocery bill is next to nothing from the store.

I am in the wrong market! I sell my chicken fro $2.35/lb and they are usually 3-4lbs. $25-30??????? WOW

We sell for $20 each as well.

 

[abifae]

Chicken is 5-7/pound here. Beef is more. My good beef liver was only $6 total Grass fed. woot!

Article on rising food prices .

 

[Avalon1984]

Unfortunately that's how my budget goes too... a 5 pound chicken at the farmer's market is about $25-30... at the grocery store a whole chicken is about $10... when my weekly food budget is $80, I can't afford to buy the meat from the market.

Goat's milk I do buy at the market because I can buy a pint for Aeryn ($2.00) vs. the grocery store that only sells it by the gallon for $18.

My neighbour sells eggs for $2.50/dozen, that's $1.50 less than the grocery store sells regular white eggs for so of course I'm going to buy her free-range eggs from the chickens that wander over to visit sometimes

I do find now that I'm more concious of what I'm eating, it is costing us more to eat weekly... but we're feeling a lot better about it. I don't mind paying for good food and I would love to get to the point where I can eat whatever I wanted without worrying about how much it costs. Really I want to live somewhere that I can produce my own food so our grocery bill is next to nothing from the store.

I am in the wrong market! I sell my chicken fro $2.35/lb and they are usually 3-4lbs. $25-30??????? WOW

We sell for $20 each as well.

Wow. I need to check what they get at the Farmers market here. The job situation isn't too rosy here right now so maybe that is why prices have stayed down. The most I have seen was $10 a chicken.

 

[hwillm1977]

Wow. I need to check what they get at the Farmers market here. The job situation isn't too rosy here right now so maybe that is why prices have stayed down. The most I have seen was $10 a chicken.

It depends on where you are too... I'm in Canada, and I'm only about a two hour drive to the border of Maine so sometimes it could be worth the gas money to drive across the border to get groceries... I've seen turkey or chicken specials that are less than $1.00/pound... here turkey is about $3.00/pound, and chicken around $3.50/pound for a whole chicken (but it does go on sale)

ETA: I looked at boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the grocery store today... they are $13.00/pound and a package of 4 breasts was $32.00!

Bubblingbrooks: We are in the process of building a coop for laying hens (we had some but no insulated place to keep them, so sold them before last winter), and a tractor for meaties... I'm hoping to get 15-20 at a time, for three batches over the spring-fall next year so we have one chicken/week to make our meals from.

 

[animalfarm]

I am in Canada as well.

Some of you have posted what to me are really cheap prices for chicken feed. Here wheat is $15.00/50 lb. bag, corn is $16.50, peas are $16.00/25 lbs.
I don't use corn or soy; I use wheat and peas in order to avoid gm and cater to corn and soy allergies many people have. My chickens are free range and my prices do not reflect the losses I endure because of this either, so in actuality, I am in the hole big time if I include those as well infrastructure costs.

Last year it cost $4.25 plus tax to have a chicken processed which is required by law here if we wish to sell it as meat. I figured at $3.50 lb I earned a whopping <0 per chicken. I am also limited by law to not more then 300 meaties per calendar year. It truly is starvation wages even though a 5 lb chicken cost someone $17.50 to buy it from me. I simply cannot do that again. If I were to accurately assess my true costs per chicken and make a little bit of money, I would need to raise my price to around $25-$30 a chicken and that will only last till the next rise in feed prices. As stated in previous posts, not too many of you are willing/able to pay that and I too would choke up a bit if I was asked to plunk that down on a chicken not knowing the whole story and not owning my own bank.

Just to put things in perspective, if I were to grab a chicken as it ran past and butcher it, most of you will not pay $30.00 to eat it, but that very same chicken (Chantecler) sold live will fetch $30.00 no problem. Small farmers are not a dying breed; they are pretty much dead and buried in a paupers grave.

 

[freemotion]

Have you heard of Joel Salatin and Polyface Farm? He seems to be doing fine.

 

[hiker]

Why is food so high in Canada?

 

[moolie]

EVERYTHING costs more in Canada, despite the fact that the value of our dollar has risen to par with the US dollar. For example, when we buy books and magazines there are two prices listed--the Canadian price is always 25-30% higher than the US price.

There are a few obvious issues when it comes to food distribution though. Our cities and towns are further apart (adding transportation costs), our total population (33.7 Million) is much smaller than the US population added to that low density (supply and demand economics), and we can't grow everything up here due to areas with short growing seasons (many long-season items thus come at a premium because they are imported or grown in hothouses). The cost of living is just generally higher here.

 

[Wifezilla]

Gas prices up. Jobs added... ZERO. Dow is down 200. Happy Friday everyone!

 

[animalfarm]

Have you heard of Joel Salatin and Polyface Farm? He seems to be doing fine.

I don't consider him a small farmer any more. Not industrial but not small; he has more then 500 acres and thousands of chickens and hundreds of pigs. He also lives in an area with less regulations restricting what he can or cannot do. He managed his PR very well and I would lay odds although I really don't know, but a lot of his income comes from using his farm as a tourist attraction for wannabe farmers and the resultant speaking engagements. Once you have celebrity, people tend to look the other way and/or want to be a part of it by saying they bought from him or met him kind of thing. I am pretty sure that his name sells his product faster then the guy down the road who is raising the exact same thing but is just an 'ordinary guy' and much, much smaller in scale. Not trashing the guy, but he an apple and I am an orange.