If your next deli sandwich seems a bit short on lunchmeat, you’re probably not imagining it.
Consumer prices for lunchmeats rose 4.2% in September, the largest monthly increase on record, far outpacing the 0.3% rise in broader grocery costs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Year on year, lunchmeat prices increased at almost the same pace.
“Starting this year, I’ve realized our deli sandwiches have increased in price and we get less and less lunchmeat to work with,” said Glenda Zelaya, a worker at Atrium Cafe, a Washington sandwich shop.
Volume sales of sausage were down in September for the first time “in many months,” market research firms 210 Analytics LLC and Circana said in a report. Packaged lunchmeat sales are down almost 5% from a year earlier, while deli meat sales are stabilizing after a listeria recall last year.
The lunchmeat numbers in Friday’s inflation report, which aren’t seasonally adjusted, were stoked by record-high US beef prices, a decline in domestic cattle and pig herds and a worker shortage that’s driving up wages.
President Donald Trump’s 50% tariff on imported goods from Brazil, the world’s largest beef and processed meats exporter, are tightening supplies further.
“The same issues you’re seeing in beef, you’re seeing reflected everywhere — feed prices, processing costs are up. Everybody has to raise prices along the food chain,” said Sam Gazdziak, spokesman for the American Association of Meat Processors.
“There are a lot of steps along the chain from the live animal to the meat you see in your case, and if you see rising prices at one end of it, it has a ripple effect,” he said.
Deli meat lovers also face other pressures. Trump’s administration is working on a definition of ultra-processed food as part of a push by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to get Americans to eat less ultra-processed food, which includes packaged deli meats.
“I see people ordering less ham, for example, and looking for more healthy options like veggie sandwiches,” Zelaya at Atrium Cafe said.
Written by: María Paula Mijares Torres and Kristina Peterson @Bloomberg
The post “Deli Meats See Record Price Bump as Grocery Costs Keep Rising” first appeared on Bloomberg
