If you're one of the many Americans who went shopping over the weekend, you probably raised an eyebrow or two when you got to the checkout.
And that's not because there were so many (or suddenly so few) self-checkout kiosks waiting for you to scan all your stuff yourself.
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Rather, the price of your purchases may have taken you by surprise. In fact, many products in the store cost more than a month before.
The most recent Consumer Price Index, released in late February, gave consumers an idea of how much the average cost of goods has risen. Prices rose 3.1% in total over 12 months, above the 2.9% most analysts expected. February figures will be published on Tuesday morning.
Here's how several key consumer goods and services changed compared to the previous month:
- Food: up to 0.4%
- Energy: up to 0.5%
- Used vehicles: down 3.4%
- Dress: down 0.7%
- Shelter: up to 0.6%
- Transport: up to 1%
- Health care services: up to 0.7%
The cost of food at home (that is, what you buy in the supermarket) rose 0.4%.
“The index for other foods in the country increased 2.6% in the 12 months ending in January,” the CPI reports.
Here are some of the foods that have seen the biggest price increases between January 2023 and January 2024:
- Fresh fruit: +1.4%
- Birds: 1.7% increase
- Fats and oils: +1.9%
- Sugar and sweets: +4.4%
- Beef: 7.7% increase
- Processed fruits and vegetables: up to 2.5%
- Cereals and bakery products: +1.5%
- Non-alcoholic beverages: up to 3.4%
A budget grocer plans a major expansion
Naturally, many customers are getting creative when it comes to cost-cutting measures. Some shop less and try to empty their pantries before making another stop at the supermarket. Others drive a few extra miles to reach an inexpensive retailer or wholesaler, which typically offers better prices per item than big-name grocery stores.
One of those grocers is Aldi, the privately held German supermarket chain that also operates Trader Joe's.
Aldi is best known for its deeply discounted staples, many of which it sells under its own private label, often at much cheaper prices than at typical grocery stores.
And being in the budget market is good business, especially as food becomes more expensive due to inflation and other natural disasters. Aldi, which acquired Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket from Southeastern Grocers in 2023, plans to invest $9 billion in its Northeast, Midwest and West Coast markets to expand its footprint and open 800 new or expanded stores over the next four years. .
These are some of their ambitious expansion plans:
- Northeast and Midwest: open 330 new stores by 2028
- Southern California and Phoenix: continue expansion after entering the early 2020s
- New cities: open new locations in new US cities, including Las Vegas
In 2023, Aldi also announced that it planned to convert many of its newly acquired Winn Dixie supermarkets into Aldi-branded stores by 2025.
The addition of 800 new stores is a massive undertaking for Aldi, which currently operates just under 2,400 stores in the US.
But he is no stranger to ambitious plans. In 2017, Aldi announced plans to invest $5 billion in its U.S. operations and expand rapidly, which the grocer says is now on track. This new $9 billion expansion effort is simply the next phase of its U.S. acquisition and crowns Aldi as one of the fastest-growing grocers in the country.
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