by Kim Lyons
November 20, 2023
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) released a new “greedflation” report in time for Thanksgiving that examines the ways the items Americans buy for their holiday meals are made more expensive by food and agriculture businesses.
A new report from U.S. Sen Bob Casey looks at how companies have increased prices on holiday meal staples. Potato prices are up more than 60% year-over-year, the report found.
The “Stuffing their Pockets” report, based on government data and companies’ financial reports, finds that turkey prices have fallen this year but are higher than they were in 2020. Staples like chicken, pork, and potatoes are more expensive, the report finds.
“As Pennsylvania families prepare for the holidays, they’re seeing higher prices on everything from chicken to pork to potatoes,” Casey said in a statement accompanying the report. “These higher prices are the result of greedflation — big food and agriculture businesses are gobbling up Pennsylvanians’ paychecks simply because they can. I’m taking steps to fight back so we can make corporations pay their fair share and put more money in the pockets of working families.”
The report highlights several key food items. For example, the price of boneless chicken is up 38% since January 2020, nearly twice the rate of overall inflation of 19% during that same period. In Oct. 2023, Reuters reported that chicken prices at grocery stores in the U.S. “hit record highs and should stay elevated as Tyson Foods and other companies dial back poultry production to boost margins.” A chart from Sen. Bob Casey’s second greedflation report.
Casey’s report notes that Tyson Foods, the largest chicken producer in the U.S., doubled its profits in the final quarter of 2021, and reported record sales and earnings in 2022. But prices for corn feed, which companies feed their chickens, were down 27% in October from a year ago.
Prices on potatoes, typically an inexpensive staple for many U.S. households, are up more than 60% year-over-year. For Lamb Weston Holdings, the largest frozen potato provider in the U.S., net income was up 111% year-over-year in its most recent quarter, according to the report.
It’s the second “greedflation” report from Casey’s office. A “Day in the Life” report earlier this month looked at the prices of commonly purchased household items and groceries, citing data and remarks from the companies’ own financial disclosures and quarterly reports to demonstrate how the companies had contributed to the inflated prices consumers pay.
According to that report, corporate profits accounted for all the inflation in the first year of the pandemic recovery — roughly July 2020 to July 2021— and 41% of inflation overall in the first two years of the post-pandemic recovery period of July 2020 to July 2022.
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