Phil Lempert, editor of SupermarketGuru.com joins Cheddar News to discuss the rising grocery costs. 

Food prices have risen 11.4% from August 2021 to August 2022. Phil Lempert, the editor at SupermarketGuru.com, joined Cheddar News to discuss the causes behind the rise of food prices. "The number one that nobody's really talking about, that they should be, is climate change," he said. "So what's happened with climate change as it relates to butter and milk? The bottom line is that the feed has gotten more expensive for farmers because of the floods, heat, and everything else."

Climate Change to Blame for Rise in Food Prices, Says Analyst

now joining us now to discuss is Phil Lempert, editor of supermarket guru dot com, Phil Thank you so much for joining us this morning, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food prices have risen 11.4% between august 2021 in august 2022. What's your reaction to these rising costs and how will this impact consumers? Especially as we head into the holidays? Well, good morning Chloe. Bottom line is it's going to continue to go up. You know, you cite the numbers from BLS, but when we look at butter for example, that's up 24.6%. If we look at milk 13%. So what we're really seeing are a whole bunch of factors taking place and why those food prices are going up. The number one that nobody's really talking about that they should be is climate change. So what's happened with climate change as it relates to butter and milk? Is bottom line is the feed has gotten more expensive for farmers because of the floods, because of the heat, because of everything else. There's less cows that are out there. You know, these farmers and these ranchers are trying really hard, but you know, the bottom line is they can't make any money doing what they do every day to supply our food world. You mentioned some of the reasons that we've seen the cost of butter and milk surging here. So what are stores doing to help offset some of these costs for consumers. Well, the problem is number one, since the pandemic, we don't see a lot of coupons and promotions. The reason for that is it takes about three months lead time. They don't know what's going to be on their shelves. So we've seen a major decrease in promotions. Stores work on an average of about 1.5% net profit. So there's not a lot that they can do. Um The stores are trying hard to maintain those prices because bottom line is when you and I Chloe and baker go into the supermarket, what we're doing is we're blaming the supermarket. We're not thinking about the entire supply chain. The problem that we've got with trucking, the problem that we've got with labor costs going up. As I mentioned, the climate change. We're just pointing the finger at that supermarket operator. And to be honest with you, it's not their fault. I'm curious, you know, we can't expect all of these prices to be defrayed here. So what types of consumer trends and shifts can we expect to see due to the surging costs? Well, certainly, especially during the holiday time, we're going to see people trading. Um we're going to see more store brand store brands since the pandemic have risen substantially. It used to be basically about 20% of sales were store brands. Now it's up around 40% depending on the chain. So we're seeing that. And also keep in mind just as a hint by the store brand that has a money back guarantee. If you don't like it, bring back the the unused portion, you'll get a full refund. So there's no harm in trying store brands. We're also seeing people going into different channels of distribution. So for example, CVS and Walgreens, well they sell milk less expensive than the supermarkets do. So we're going there, we're going to grocery outlets were going to food service distributors that during the pandemic opened up their doors to shoppers were really shopping around and we see the increase in dollar stores. Um What we want to do is we want to save as much money as we can. In fact, just recently I brought a family of four to a supermarket here in Los Angeles. What I did is I looked at the regular bill which was about 100 and 60 bucks a week. We cut it down to less than half of that by knowing number one store brands number two using coupons, number three, just paying attention to what you're doing. They used to spend about 22 minutes on a shopping trip. I made them spend 33 minutes 11 minutes more but they saved over $80 by doing that. So we need to slow down when we're in the store, we need to look around and we need to really think about alternatives Phil thank you so much for your insight and some really useful tips for families looking to save money in there as well. That's Phil Lempert, editor of supermarket guru dot com.