I was contemplating hamburger cookout over the Labor Day holiday. Prospects?<\/p>\n
Figure 1:<\/strong> PPI Wholesaling of Fresh Meat, Seafood, Dairy, and Fruits and Vegetables (blue), PPI Frozen Ground Meat Patties and Other Processed, Frozen, or Cooked Meats, Made from Purchased Carcasses (tan), all seasonally adjusted by author using geometric moving average, all in logs 2025M01=0. Source: BLS via FRED, author\u2019s calculations.<\/em><\/p>\n For fresh vegetable and fruits, tariffs are now in place for Mexican goods, and we have anecdotal evidence on difficulty in obtaining labor in the fields, so the jump in PPI for fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and seafood is not surprising. For processed meat, smaller herds are part of the issue, but tariffs on Brazilian imports have added \u2014 Brazilian beef accounts for about a quarter of US beef imports.<\/p>\n That\u2019s at the wholesale level. What about at the impact at the retail level? There\u2019s nothing exactly corresponding to fresh meats\u2026, but I can check PPI processed meats and CPI for hamburger.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/econbrowser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ppi_groceries_pix.png\")
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