Today I’ll share some thoughts of some actions you can take with the current food price increases, and share a strategy that can give you some margin: building a buffer pantry.
If you’re a long term reader here, you’ll recognize this as similar to my regular way of shopping, which is to shop the sales to stock your pantry.
Now specifically with food getting more expensive, I’m refining my recommendations. You’re still going to shop to build up your pantry, but you’re going to focus on the items you use most that are going to see the biggest price jumps.
No foods will be immune from price increases, but some will rise much more and will rise sooner, and it’s helpful to know the order that prices usually rise so you can focus your efforts on the highest value foods.
First to go up are: oils/fats, then meat, poultry and eggs, dairy and bread (bread will have smaller increases than the animal products). Grains/legumes and produce follows.
So you’re going to shop in that order.
What you buy needs to be the foods you use the most of. Is that food produced locally? If so, the prices will go up less. If it needs to be imported, it will go up more. I’m not going to suggest you buy anything different than what you already buy, but I want you to purchase strategically so you can lock in the savings of today’s prices.
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1) Coconut oil is my staple for cooking and baking. I buy it in bulk direct from a bakery store that sells direct to the customer (Poliva). Since I buy a large amount at a time, I buy this infreqently and wasn’t due to order for another two months. I was already low on coconut oil, and knew if I waited I’d be looking at a much more expensive purchase, so I made my purchase sooner.
Last time there was a supply chain shakeup after covid, I bought a 20 kg carton for 250 shekels. Within less than two months, coconut oil went up to 400 for 20 kg. Now it’s been 400 for 18 kg for quite a while. Having made my purchase, it will be interesting rather than stressful to see what the price looks like in a few months.
I don’t know if technically nut butters also go in this category as far as supply chains go, but in my mind they do. Peanut butter was on sale for 7.50 for a 500 gram container – how could you not buy a bunch at this price? They store well, and in our home we go through a lot of peanut butter.
What oils and fats do you use? Consider buying some extra.
2) The next thing that will jump in price will be meat. We’ve seen meat go up enormously in the last six years, and I think it will continue to go much, much higher. It will probably be the food that will have the biggest price increases. Being a family that is heavily meat-based, this is the item that concerns me the most.
When meat was on sale a month ago, I bought as much as I could to stock my freezer, and also canned a case of it.
Though my supermarket usually has sales on at least one or two cuts of meat every week, there’s been nothing on sale for almost a month. Even knowing that today’s regular price is tomorrow’s sale price, I haven’t bought meat other than that sales purchase over a month ago, because there haven’t been any cuts of meat in stock with the kosher supervision we use.
Chicken will follow the meat increases. I’m adjusting our diet to accomodate the anticipated increases so I can keep my food budget steady. I’m decreasing the meat we eat, and replacing it with chicken. Many people will do the same as prices move up, and that’s an additional factor (beyond the shipping/fertilizer issues) that will cause chicken prices to increase.
For the next couple of days at my store, chicken wings are on sale for 9.90 a kg (instead of 16.90 -Kehilot) until the end of the month. I’ve bought some for the freezer and am canning some today to put on the shelf. I really like having canned chicken on hand for quick dinner prep.
While dairy and eggs will go up (as are all other animal products since the feed they all need is imported), I don’t have suggestions for proactively dealing with that, other than to put some butter in the freezer if it’s something you use regularly. I haven’t ever seen powdered milk or powdered eggs sold here (not to say it’s not sold here, just that I’ve never seen it!). Both of these items are shelf stable for an extended period. We have hens for eggs, and our goat just gave birth a few days ago, so once we wean the baby in a few weeks, we’ll have milk of our own. That’s obviously not an option for most people!
Bread – when bread goes up in cost, you have the option of buying flour and making your own, which is always a big money saver.
Produce is also something you can’t buy in advance, unless you know how to process it through drying, freezing or canning. These are skills you can learn, and as someone who has been canning since 2008 and loves it, I highly recommend learning! I’ve saved SO, SO much money by canning our foods. There are many online free resources that you can avail yourself of if you’re interested in learning.
Lastly are the grains and legumes. Most of these are produced outside of Israel and imported. Last week someone organized a group bulk buy of these staples, and I ordered a few of the items that I use the most. I looked at the labels that displayed the country of origin for each item: nothing is grown here! Oats from England, chickpeas from Bulgaria, other items from Mexico, South America, etc. It was fascinating – but far from local.
These store so easily, are cheap and are the foundation of the diet for most people.
When I got my items, I was thinking of a news item that I had just heard about. Almost all of these grain and legume sacks are made of polypropylene. Due to the dramatic reduction of plastic production, in India they no longer have these sacks in the 1 kg/5 kg/25 kg size. How does the food get to people? Truckloads of loose grain are arriving, and people have to wait to have it weighed out and take it home in their own containers.
Plastic bags were something we all took for granted as a given, that were the norm for everyone until a couple of weeks ago. And suddenly, large numbers of people are making adjustments due to not having them. It made me feel grateful for all that we have.
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By buying a bit more of the things you regularly use at today’s prices, it will cushion your budget so you can more easily handle the financial increases. I’m only talking about food, but everything is affected by the issues I wrote about in my last post and will become more costly. It’s always desirable to be a good steward of the resources you have, and now being even more strategic will be beneficial.
A person can use substitutions and change their diet to adjust to what is affordable, and being mentally flexible is so, so helpful! Change will happen whether we like it or not, but we can choose to be proactive and positive.
Avivah