I have been fascinated by the price of oats recently. The 8lb box of oats I have been buying from Amazon for several years suddenly went from $15 to $32 in July. Paying $4/lb for grain feels excessive given that meat is cheaper than that in most of the country. I went looking for an explanation expecting there to been some huge crop loss, but found oat future prices have been relatively stable at around $0.15/lb. I looked at other prices, and whole foods even charges $3.6/lb for their store brand and something like $2.5/lb for bulk goods. I distinctly remember buying the same bulk oats for $0.59/lb in 2017, right around the time Amazon bought whole foods. And oat futures prices are only up about 30% since then.

I think retailers would like us to believe these increases are just them passing through rising commodity prices from inflation, but I am increasingly convinced it is collusion, either implicit or explicit, to increase margins. The most compelling evidence this is happening seems to be Costco, which generally sets its prices at near-fixed 15% markup hasn't experienced nearly the same increases and is selling similar products at less than half of that price.

I think the entire thing is indicative of a growing disconnect between the cost of commodities and what consumers are paying due to increased consolidation and collusion among retailers.