They can choose between the individual products they buy, so it wouldn't be a problem if just some food items got expensive. But the price of food overall is inflating.
That is a false binary. You can still buy flour (or naan or pita), cheese and tomato sauce instead of pre-made pizzas, sacrificing your time against rising food costs. You can buy lentils instead of steak, sacrificing your preferences against rising food costs. Or you can travel further to a warehouse store and buy in bulk...
When enough people act empowered in the face of adversity, we don't have to sweat "greedflation". Retailers will learn their lesson.
Yes, I understand rising prices make life worse. But don't let anyone tell you there's nothing you can do about it. Learn to cook, change stores, eat differently, maybe even move.
"My Pizza Pops went up 25%, I am powerless in the face of inflation!" Just no.
The exception is maybe if you've got a good Indian supermarket and can buy at the 10-20kg range, then churn out a lot of chapattis.
"Let them make cake"
A lot of the basic foodstuffs -- dry beans, grains, milk, eggs, flour -- have all gone up in price significantly. I've seen prices double over the last two years on some of these.
In fact, I believe that the price of hot dogs have gone up more than the price of steak has. Yet people are still buying more hot dogs and less steak.
It will happen.
And the inflation will push some people toward such food choices. Maybe not that extreme, but switching to cheaper food generally means eating less nutritious food (unless you were over-spending), which is awful.
Being pushed into single-digits spending on food daily isn't outside the realm of reality. £10 a day is about £305 a month. This is a lot of money for some vulnerable groups, like large single parent families, retirees, students, some young adults, and similar.
The inflation also harms people's diets in a several ways: you must buy less food or less nutritious food for the same amount of money, and you have less money for food as other expenses have inflated. What is worse, less healthy food demand has long-term consequences to do with its supply going down and prices going up further.
In Germany I'm able to buy 1kg of flour for about 50 euro cents at Edeka. I don't know how much bread that makes, but it is A LOT. I'm certain that it is significantly more than 2880 calories.
Still there are in-between options - pasta for instance is more bang for your buck than peanut butter and is much easier to prep yourself than bread.
Anyways, it was to argue a point. Most calorie-dense foods are unhealthy if eaten alone. Peanut-butter, and flour included.
If everybody starts eating even more trash than usual then that will cost the government more in healthcare costs.
Eating seasonal and preserved foods is how we survived before the age of refrigeration and global logistics chains and maybe we should reconsider what is normal.
That we survived doesn't mean we had a balanced diet.
I'm a senior programmer with outrageous salary, and I still paused yesterday looking at the price of beef. Went for chicken instead.
I wish inflation numbers would also include things like "percentage of income spent on just living: food and shelter"
If that also leads to meat being a side dish instead of the main dish more often that's probably for the better for overall population health too AFAIK.
One could be temporarily elastic, e.g. thaw meats from the freezer, eat shelf-stable food from the pantry. And in a few weeks, prices could be different and they do tend to bounce around week to week.
Elastic demand is the opposite. Some products have elastic demand, like luxuries and durables. An expensive car trim might be very price-sensitive because it is a luxury product. People will buy much fewer of those in austere times. They may buy fewer washing machines, too, because these products are durables. They are often bought "as an upgrade" or when one broke but could be repaired for cheaper.
Why does higher priced food keep inflating too if consumer has no control.
They could always eat cake.
Not sure how this would be relevant.
a) raw ingredients didn't go up in price either. They did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35291270
b) making food from raw ingredients is cheaper than buying (at least some of the ingredients) pre-made. Again, it isn't for a surprising number of foods because, you know, economies of scale. Prime example is bread.
Why do you think economies of scale wouldn't happen at the potato-selling business? Are they buying and selling individual potatoes?
It's easy to dismiss your opponent with "but rice and potatoes aren't more expensive". Well, I don't only eat rice and potatoes, and prices for other stuff like meat and milk has gone up.