They have a cute economics name for it now. “Rockets and feathers.”
Here’s what that means at your kitchen table: when their costs go up, your grocery bill shoots up overnight. When their costs come down, the price floats like a feather in a hurricane and never hits the ground.
Food-at-home prices jumped 11.4% in 2022. Biggest spike in fifty goddamn years. Your family felt it at the register, felt it when the meal plan shrank, felt it when the kids needed shoes and the budget said no.
And now a consultant from AlixPartners — a global firm that advises the companies making the money — stands up and tells you to stop hoping. “Deflation is very rare.” Translation: you’re fucked, get used to it.
They used the pandemic to jack the price. They used supply chains to keep it jacked. They used “inflation is slowing” to tell you the crisis was over while the receipt said otherwise. Now they’re using a war to ratchet it again.
This isn’t some mystery of the market. This is a one-way ratchet operated by people who never miss a meal. Prices go up like a rocket and savings come down like a feather — which is a polite way of saying they don’t come down at all, and some well-dressed shit-eating consultant is paid to explain why that’s just how it works.
Your grocery bill is a hostage. The negotiator works for the goddamn kidnapper.
Source story: Economists describe grocery price pattern as rockets and feathers.