The Bureau of Labor Statistics has forecast that food will increase over a range of 7.5 to 8.5 percent through 2022. Food away from home will increase from 6.0 to 7.0 percent.  Food at home will increase at a higher rate ranging from 8.5 percent to 9.5 percent.  Within this category, all meats are expected to rise 7.5 to 8.5 percent with beef and veal at 6.5 percent; poultry, 13.5 percent, and fish and seafood 9 percent.  Eggs represent a special category rising 19.5 to 20.5 percent due primarily to highly pathogenic avian influenza requiring depletion of 31.4 million hens representing close to ten percent of the national flock. 

Among other categories contributing to inflation, fats and oils will increase by 14.5 percent partly due to a spike in the price of palm oil as a result of an inappropriate restriction on exports by Indonesia, since lifted.  The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation will also deprive the international market of sunflower oil.  Cereals and bakery products will increase by 10.5 percent due mostly to the escalation in the price of wheat, again as a result of the conflict in Ukraine and embargoes on Black Sea shipping.

The increase in consumer prices predicted for 2022 can be compared to 20-year historical averages.  All food increased by 2.4 percent, food away from home by 2.9 percent, poultry by 2.3 percent, and eggs by 3.2 percent.  Clearly supply chain issues, disruption in international shipping with an escalation in cost of freight and inflation in the costs of fuel and labor, contributed to a marked increase in the consumer price indexes for food during 2021 and to the 2022 forecast.