Raspberries died in our household this week; more specifically, my wife proclaimed, "Raspberries are dead to me!" Raspberries are... were everywhere in our kitchen, nestled into the yogurt (did I say yogurt also in trouble), draped on top of the cereal, and laid out in little snack dishes like cashews. Cashews — also dead.
We did not suddenly stop enjoying the taste of these items, of course, but they have entered the weekly "should we buy it or not" conversation as grocery prices continue to skyrocket, either as a direct result of Trump tariffs or stores using the tariffs as an opportunistic rationale for price gouging.
Now, this is not a screet about Trump's policies — there are plenty of places to find those — nor is it Jack's Consumer Guide to Grocery Shopping. Though I grew up in a grocery store (my father operated a small one in South Jersey) I never paid much attention to prices or bargains. Back in the day, when you had those little coupons you could redeem, my wife would hand them to me and I'd lost them before I'd reach the store. Geez, I hope she's not listening.
My point is that this seems to be the time when discussions about prices have reached a tipping point, at least in my world. I'm not ignoring the fact that many people have been talking about this for a long while. The price of eggs came up so often in Biden's final days that one could be excused for believing he was a poultry farmer, not the President. But with the stock market in free fall and trade wars breaking out with every country in the world, grocery uncertainty seems to be at an all-time high.
Rising prices are not a political issue, nor is it a figment of anyone's imagination. One food industry analyst told NPR last week that almost half of the products in a super market, which number about 40,000, by the way, will be affected by tariffs. Now, these battles are individual ones, varying from household to household. Our raspberries might be your bananas. Our yogurt might be your olive oil. Well, okay, it's our olive oil, too. Olive oil prices have, to quote that industry analyst, gone through the roof, and we go through so much EVOO in the phrasing of the Food Network, I sometimes think we use it as motor oil.
Now, rising prices did compel me to study things I never thought much about. It wasn't surprising to learn, of course, that we are the world's leading importer of coffee, and that most of the coffee comes from Latin American countries. My wife, by the way, has noticed a jump in her coffee beans, but she chooses not to dwell on it for purposes of maintaining her morning sanity. But it also turns out we import most of our beer from Mexico and Canada. And here I thought we imported most of our beer from Milwaukee.
I've also done some research on buying American, and not just obvious things like automobiles. I looked in American-made vodka, for example. Buying vodka from any other place than Russia or Poland seems strange, like buying hummus from, say, Kutztown. But I came upon a brand of vodka called Tito's made in, all places, Austin, Texas. I read a review of it first and found that one taster's pallet detected tastes of, and I quote, grilled corn, ripe pineapple, red tree fruits, toffee, and happy Halloween; candy corn. When I tasted it, all I detected was vodka. I don't want you to think I have a problem, but quite frankly, the more I think about grocery prices, the more I need Tito's.
I'm hoping this price concern is a passing thing, but looking at it another way, maybe it's a good thing. As I said, I never paid much attention to prices, and food uncertainty, while a very real thing in America, was not a real thing for me. Wake-up calls at any age can be beneficial.
