Outlook for U.S. Retail Food Prices and Inflation in 2009 (PowerPoint)

As food and energy commodity prices surged in late 2007 and most of 2008, there was a renewed interest in updated estimates of the impact of these increases on retail food prices. The drop in commodity prices (September 2008- March 2009) leads to the same set of questions in the opposite direction. This presentation uses regression analysis to estimate how much of the change in commodity costs is passed through to retail prices and, just as important, estimate the time lag between commodity price changes and retail price changes across a number of food groups. The presenter will then focus on the outlook for food prices in 2010 given the results of the analysis described above.