The bad news is being felt in food categories most consumers know and love: bread, milk, butter - even coffee. They are staples people buy every week. The kinds consumers cannot help but notice are costing more.
Agricultural economist Annette Clauson said the uptick in prices in core food categories was feeding shoppers' anxieties as they also shell out bigger bucks for other routine outlays that, not so long ago, seemed more affordable.
"You're seeing the higher gas prices along with higher utility prices in most cases, along with higher food prices," said Clauson, who studies food costs for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "So they're kind of getting hit all at the same time."
Despite the sharp increases in food costs, U.S. consumers are still spending less of their income these days on food than they were decades ago, Clauson said. In 1929, Americans spent 23.4 percent of their disposable income on food. By 2006, the latest year available, that was down to 9.9 percent.
But because some of the most jarring recent increases have come in staple food categories, consumers are feeling the pinch acutely. "They see those price differences . . . the ones that they're somewhat alarmed about," she said.
One big increase last month was for coffee, which went up 4 percent. There were other big spikes in butter prices, which went up 7.8 percent, and margarine, up 6.5 percent from March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
While bread and milk prices rose less sharply during the month (bread went up 1.5 percent, milk 0.9 percent), the bureau said they were much higher than just a year ago, in April 2007.
Bread prices last month were 14.1 percent higher than 12 months earlier, and milk was 13.5 percent more expensive.
