Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
The supermarket squeeze continues. Food prices have gone up at the sharpest rate in nearly two decades, and they'll probably continue to go up as well.
Forget the price of a gallon of gas; you may not even want to look at the price of a gallon of milk soon.
The Agriculture Department says people should brace themselves for the biggest increase in food prices in nearly 20 years, and even more pain next year.
Prices for meat, chicken and fish are going up 3 percent; fruits and veggies close to 6 percent, and cereals and bakery items about 10 percent. Eggs alone may go up 14 percent.
Shoppers we talked to are cutting coupons now more than ever.
"Every time there's a sale, we get more of it," one woman said.
"We look for deals more," a man added.
The Agriculture Department blames it on the high cost of energy and food ingredients. It says even though the price of oil is coming down, it's taking a while to affect food prices.
E-mail: mrichards@ksl.com
