Why Are Grocery Store Prices So High

[00:00] This podcast is supported by Instagram. Instagram teen accounts default teens into automatic protections for who can contact them and the content they can see. Explore teen accounts and all of our ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com slash teenaccounts. [00:18] If you know your party's extension, you may dial it now. To speak to someone in customer service, press 12. [00:27] 13. [00:28] Deli or hot foods, 14. Meat or seafood, 15. [00:33] From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kittrow-Eff. This is The Daily. Who's market can help you? For a while now, my colleague, Daily producer Jessica Chung, has been reporting on, or trying to report on, grocery prices. I was wondering if you had a moment right now to talk about the kind of nature of shopping right now and why everything is so expensive. That you would have to contact our corporate office for any information like that. [01:03] soaring. Then came Ukraine, tariffs, and now the Strait of Hormuz, which has pushed prices even higher. So she's been calling stores to talk about that, trying to find a grocery store manager who could talk about how they and the people who shop in their store are dealing with round after round

[01:33] could possibly go. And who would you recommend that I talk to at the corporate level? Uh, Brad. Talk to Brad. I was told that this is a number for Brad. He's in a meeting in the moment. I could take a message and when he gets out, he could, uh, you know, call you back. Okay. But a lot of the grocery stores she'd reached out to never got back to her. And the big grocery chains referred her to people far removed from the shelves. [02:03] answer her questions. I would love to, but unfortunately, I'm not allowed to. I'm not really allowed to say anything. You should be able to just email media at wholesuits.com. You can always call 1-800-Kroger. Your call is being transferred. [02:21] But then she reached a small store, and this one manager picked up the phone. I wonder if you'd be open to a conversation about that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I would love to. Today, we go to his grocery store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to finally get some answers. [02:39] It's Monday, July 13th. [02:43] In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a part of town called East End, sits the aptly named East End Food Co-op. It's tucked away in a street without a lot of foot traffic. Its storefront is lined with grocery carts. There's a display of leafy potted herbs and organic seedless watermelons going for $18.99. Like most food cooperatives, there is no CEO. There are no shareholders. It's owned by the very people who shop there.

[03:13] 17,000 members. [03:16] Though anyone off the street can buy their groceries here. No, we're not getting that. Put that back, please. On a Monday morning in the middle of June, I walked into the produce section. I'm talking to shoppers about grocery prices. Okay, go ahead. It was not hard to get people to talk about prices and how high they are. You notice grocery prices go up? Oh, most definitely. To the extreme. Oh, indeed. It's meteoric in a way. Nasty. [03:43] walking into the store sometimes. I've heard from everybody in my family that they're going up. And when I bring Steph home, it's like, this is outrageous. It's not just at this co-op. It's everywhere. Prices are soaring at unusually high rates. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since 2020, grocery prices have climbed by nearly 30 percent, at a rate way faster than before the pandemic. This lettuce is $4. That seems like a lot. I would have expected like $2.99. [04:13] Today the price of watermelons is $18.99. I saw that out front. I was surprised that was the advertised thing out front. I thought that was like a misprint. I just was shocked. Red peppers. Red peppers. Oh my god. They're like almost $10 this morning. $10 for one? Yeah. Per pound. So one. Okay we're weighing it on the scale. It's almost a pound. So this is almost $10 for one red pepper. Just a few weeks ago it was like seven or eight.

[04:43] And over the winter it was six and it just keeps going up. Is there one item where you've seen prices go up and your jaw just drop? Yes, steak. [04:54] Steak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Used to be like you can get two nice steaks for about $20-$25. It's like $45 and up now. And is that deterring you? New York strip, T-bones. All kinds of steaks. All kinds, yeah. So I've been seeing the family size bag. I think it's like $7 or $8 now. It's not a family size. Not at all. It's shrunk and the price has gone up. Yep. I don't like to think about it because it's scary. Yeah. So I don't think about it so I don't pay that much attention but I'm trying to buy less. Yeah and then I don't really do a good [05:24] job of calculating how much I'm spending. Now is that like a psychological defense mechanism or is that a little bit a little bit. I take this shopping so I don't this is my worry pepper. Oh this is kind of a stress ball in the form of a green pepper. [05:42] Have you noticed the rise in prices change your habits at all? Like I'll get less cheese, I'll get less meat, I'll get less chocolate. Designer ice cream, that's long gone. What's the designer ice cream you like? Oh, well, the Haagen Dazs, that kind of stuff. Like the Bramble Berry Crisp. I don't see ice cream. We don't need it. Let's see what we can carry, what we're buying. Oh, no more baskets. No more baskets. What's your understanding of why this is happening?

[06:12] My understanding of why is that... Okay, it's such a big question that my mind is sort of shutting down in this moment. You should make us pay more. I don't know why stuff is so expensive. That doesn't make any sense to me. I haven't done the research, I guess, on the details of the why. You know, I don't know exactly how, but I just know it is. [06:42] why it's happening. When you see all these prices go up, does it raise any questions for you? Yeah, I always think like, what is this going to look like in five years, ten years? How this will affect our children? [06:57] As shoppers, we know that a lot of factors go into the prices we see. But how many of us can name them? Hey, Tyler. Good job. Yeah, Jess, nice to meet you. How's it going? Good, yeah. So far, so good. Just, you know, Monday morning. That's what I came here to talk to Tyler Kolb about. [07:12] For nearly 12 years, [07:14] He's been at East End Food Co-op [07:15] most recently as general manager. [07:18] And he's that one guy who picked up the phone. Growing seasons impacted by climate change. Climate change. Tyler's 44 years old. [07:24] And like a lot of people in this part of town, [07:26] He's got tattoos. [07:27] and as a food lover. [07:29] In fact, [07:30] He's got a newsletter. [07:31] garlic and roses. He says, yes, rising prices are driven by a bunch of factors. [07:38] Its rising temperatures, its supply chain issues. — Because of the stuff in Iran, oil and fertilizer being trapped in the strait. — But the latest reason for why prices have accelerated so much is the war in Iran.

[07:51] at the time we talked. [07:52] The U.S. and Iran had reached an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. [07:56] But, [07:57] It was unclear what "open" meant. [07:58] how freely traffic would flow through the strait. [08:01] Since then, the U.S. and Iran have resumed fighting even as they engage in peace talks. [08:06] So the price of oil continues to yo-yo up and down. And even if the price of oil manages to stay down, [08:12] Tyler says shoppers won't be feeling a sense of relief anytime soon. [08:17] Before I had him explain all that. Maybe starting from an earlier age, like how did you know you wanted to go into the grocery store business? I asked him how he became an expert on this. My grandparents owned a Baskin-Robbins. I can remember waiting on customers, scooping ice cream, making change. He grew up just a few hours east of here, as a literal kid in an ice cream store. I would have to like put my whole body on the rim of the case so I could balance, scoop ice cream, and I loved it. It was so much fun. [08:47] what people think. [08:47] studying what flavors people liked and in what seasons. And then he grew to develop an interest in a pretty esoteric topic: supply chains. I'm fascinated by the food supply chain and logistics of getting strawberries from Mexico or California to Pennsylvania in January or February. It's tedious and unique, but I found it fascinating, so I paid attention. [09:09] To be a grocery store manager, managing the margins of thousands of products on the shelves, is to be a statistician, a haggler, and also a culture anthropologist. People are more inclined to buy an item if there's three or five displayed in a line. Like many other grocery store managers, Tyler's job is to drive sales. To do that, he's a hand in designing the whole experience the shoppers have, down to all the little details. There's lots of studies and everything always say if you get berries in people's baskets, they buy more of other things as well.

[09:39] Interesting. Okay, so now I wonder if you might be able to take me around the store and give me a little tour. Okay, cool. Hey, how are you Nicholas? Good to see you. I'm doing great. Thanks. Good to see you. Yeah, thank you. [09:51] There are ways East End feels different than most other grocery stores. Like the way it hits you when you first walk in. I love the bulk herb section because I feel like it gives every co-op a unique smell. This smell is so nice. I feel like the dominant smell right now is like turmeric maybe? Yeah. Absolutely. Depending on where we go, we walk into Whole Foods, it smells like their seafood department. Yes. That dominates everything. In addition to bulk herbs are bulk nuts, grains, and oats. [10:17] There's kombucha on tap. Keystone Cultures is a local kombuchery. There's Dr. Bronner's soap, available in a buffet of these big pump bottles. Oh, it's on draft. Yep. These are freshly ground peanut butter and almond butter. Coffee, olive oil, we have them. That's bulk sugar. We get these in 50-pound bags. And, you know, you got all your normal grocery store items, pasta. If you want boxed macaroni and cheese, we have it. It's just that it's going to meet our product standards and not have dyes or other chemical additives, [10:47] enough. [10:49] . [10:52] So shopping at the co-op is a bit different than other places nearby. [10:56] It's healthier, maybe a little hippier. [10:59] But that's not to say it's yuppier. [11:01] You may have to pay a little bit more for the quality stuff. [11:03] But I met all kinds of people shopping here. [11:06] a home health aide, barber, [11:08] a couple of people on Snap benefits.

[11:11] But it turns out [11:12] It's maybe the most ideal place to look at rising food prices. [11:16] Because... [11:16] unlike bigger chains like Kroger. [11:18] which admitted to raising prices on certain items beyond the rate of inflation in 2024. [11:24] The co-op model, which is owned by the very people who shop there, means they are more motivated to keep prices low than they are to turn a profit. [11:32] And without the scale or storage capacity of a big box store, [11:36] They can't negotiate buying at higher volumes. [11:38] So the prices at the co-op can actually be the most transparent prices. [11:43] And they give us a good look into how the war in Iran caused prices to surge. Last week, there was an inflation report that showed that inflation was up by like 4.2%. And you got an email. Oh, yeah. I remember. Tyler brings his laptop over. And on the sales floor, next to the prepared food section... [12:00] He shows me an email forecasting price increases for July. This was the national co-op warning that there is a higher number of cost and price [12:09] suggestion changes than normal in a month. [12:12] The U.S. had released its latest inflation report showing the highest rate of inflation in three years. Grocery prices aren't rising quite as fast. [12:21] up 2.7 percent over the past year. [12:24] But the message from on high is that Tyler would be forced to raise prices around the store yet again. So essentially, National sends you this spreadsheet with hundreds of items with their SKUs. And they say, we're going to have to raise the price on this. And you have discretion over whether actually you don't do that.

[12:42] because that item needs to stay low to attract customers. Exactly. [12:46] Thank you. [12:46] And in July, where are the biggest markups? [12:51] This apricots has been a huge one. The bulk dried apricots. It's going up. Yeah, 140 over six months. That is its average change. Wow, the average change for your bulk apricots. 146%. [13:07] Sour pickles up 83%. Sliced peaches up 97%. Mustard 73%. Matcha 73%. Bagels and English muffins 10%. That's high. It translates to 41 cents per unit. I mean, people will notice that. Tofu's up 122%. Yes, soybeans, because that's been a big thing with fertilizer. Most of them come from China. [13:37] getting very high and getting higher. Anything over 20% to me is high in a six-month period. Overall, these percent increases are attributable to... Yes, all the inflationary factors. [13:54] So prices around the store are going up fast. Well, I wonder if you can, okay, we can continue walking through the store. And in particular, if you can walk me through certain items where the price has gone up because of the war in Iran. Yeah, yeah. So where would that be in the store?

[14:13] I asked Tyler to walk me through the store and show me how specific items have been impacted by the war in Iran. We have canola, safflower, sunflower, all of these types of oils. [14:24] took to get here and how it arrived at that sticker price. Here's your standard field day vegetable oil. Field days are everyday low price brand. Those went up 5% in the same month. Cost more to transport. It's coming from farther distances. And also with fuel prices, some of the olive oils like Equal Exchange, you know, these are all from the West Bank. And so you factor in that conflict and then also the transportation and fuel costs getting here. And will it continue to [14:54] Glass is heavier, so that costs more to transport. Say like beer companies, everybody went to aluminum cans instead of glass bottles because of the weight on the truck. There's a value to keeping it in glass. It's a better product experience than plastic. But at a certain point, they might have to make that decision that because it's so much heavier to transport, they might have to make decisions. Your glass olive oil is the most expensive items on the shelf. Oh, yeah. [15:24] but the ones in aluminum, $15.99. — Yeah, one glass jar could travel, crisscross the country, like, four times, you know? — In theory, olive oil could be produced in the West Bank, then bottled in California. [15:37] travel by freight to be warehouses in Illinois. [15:40] before he has driven down the Pennsylvania Turnpike to this grocery store.

[15:44] All of that brings up a ton of fuel. And then over here to the canned beans, are the prices for beans going up? Or anything with aluminum? Aluminum, I think, is going to be the next one. [15:55] And then there's the cost of raw materials that go into packaging. — Like soda. Anything that's packaged in an aluminum can, that's going to be the next thing. I think that sees a big price increase. — And why aluminum? [16:06] Last year, after Trump imposed a 50% tariff on aluminum imports, [16:11] American buyers started sourcing more aluminum from the Middle East. [16:15] only to find that after the U.S. attacked Iran, [16:18] their new aluminum supply was stuck. Because shipping through the straight became impossible, [16:24] some smelters in the Middle East [16:26] Factories where aluminum is made, [16:28] stop production altogether. [16:30] Others, like one in Abu Dhabi, were directly damaged by Iranian strikes. [16:35] But even as the U.S. and Iran continue with peace talks, [16:38] It will take a long time before supply is back to normal. [16:41] The site in Abu Dhabi will have to be restored [16:44] And for the companies that stop production, [16:46] A frozen line could take months to restart. [16:49] Which means, when the cost of aluminum drives up the cost of your olive oil in the coming months, [16:54] It will stay that way for a while. So where are we headed now? But Tyler says there's really one item that reflects the forces leading to higher prices. [17:02] Better than any other. We're going to head over to our meat section. And that's beef. Beef prices have gone up tremendously. It takes the most resources to have cows fed, basically. More so than, you know, chicken or seafood, anything like that. So beef is usually the first place we see a dramatic increase. 80-20 grass-fed beef, $9.99 for a one-pound package. Of ground beef. Of ground beef. When we introduced that brand, it was always $6.99.

[17:32] So not necessarily strictly because of Iran, but all the fuel costs going up, like it's gone up $3 a pound just in the last year. So, you know, when you've got land somewhere in the United States and you're raising a herd of cattle, it takes so much feed. Okay. And industrial agriculture, a lot of that is coming from China. [18:02] getting stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. China, India, huge producers of feed and fertilizer, and they all go through that strait. Same with oil. And then you have to then ship your cows. They go to a meat processing plant, which it's all on trucks, transporting it, and then the packaging. So at every point, you're seeing an increase in cost. And all that meat has to go into plastic, [18:32] - And shipped. - Exactly. Yep. And then it all has to be cold, refrigerated or frozen, the entire time. If it loses the cold chain, it's waste, it's garbage. [18:40] And there is yet another thing driving up costs. [18:43] Dairy farmers are going dry all across America. [18:46] down on their luck, [18:47] struggling with their own price increases of running a farm. [18:51] The share of farmers declaring bankruptcy has risen by 70 percent so far this year. The next generation for a lot of these farmers, they don't want to do it. They see how hard it is. [19:00] here in Western Pennsylvania.

[19:02] Tyler's own beef suppliers have quit the business. [19:05] Meaning, [19:05] He now has his sources be from further away. [19:08] which could make his beef even more expensive. [19:12] It's a problem for Tyler and his customers. [19:14] But it's also a problem for the Trump White House. [19:16] which is doing whatever it can to lower prices. [19:20] Before the 4th of July weekend, a USDA official pressured leading chain stores like Kroger and Walmart to lower the price of ground beef. [19:28] Walmart dropped his price by 12%. [19:31] But this is just a temporary fix in the face of declining supply [19:34] rising costs, and unflagging demand for beef. This is our most shoplifted case in the whole store. You're kidding me. Steaks and beef. Yep. We had to add a security guard in the morning. We only have one afternoon through closing time. We had to add one in the morning because it was getting shoplifted multiple times in the morning. Wow. Wow. I chased a guy down the street, which we don't do. [20:04] And it was just, it felt so blatant at that point. Like, literally, he literally had, like, a duffel bag. Oh, my. And I saw him standing here just throwing beef and ground beef and steaks and even, like, chickens into this duffel bag. And I tried to get him to drop it, and he just bolted for the door. And I was like, I'm going after this. Like, I can't stomach this anymore. And what happened? Well, I got, like, a block down the road, and then I was like, this is stupid. Like, I don't want to get stabbed for meat. Yeah, yeah. So he got away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is, like, a jewelry heist. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah.

[20:34] Wow. [20:35] Tyler says it might be a while before beef prices stabilize, just like everything else. [20:40] Economists have a name for it. [20:42] rockets and feathers. [20:44] Prices go up like rockets. [20:46] but come down slowly like a feather. [20:48] Because even if the strait reopens, and even if oil prices come down, [20:53] Disruption in the supply chain takes time to readjust. [20:56] And if a new normal is accepted and there's no competition, [21:00] Manufacturers tend to keep the prices artificially high. [21:04] And then if your grocery store buys in large quantities, with prices locked in up to a year, [21:09] They're stuck at that price. [21:11] for the year. And I'll be curious to see where we go to another store. A, I don't know what's in that ground beef, but I'm also curious to see how much it costs at this point, even for like the lower quality conventional chemical beef products. How much they're going for. Exactly. Yeah. Four new grocery stores have opened within a four mile radius of us. The price increases is driving more people to the discount grocers. So we have an Aldi's less than a mile from here. They at first [21:41] didn't really have much of an impact on us, but now that the food inflation has reared up again in a noticeable way, we are seeing more and more people choosing lower quality product at a discount grocer for more of their basket. [21:56] Tyler says he's already watched more of his customers shop at Aldi. [21:59] And this is part of a bigger trend, he reads in all the industry reports. A few years ago, even as prices were rising, customers would do their shopping at multiple stores, hitting each for their best deals and products. But now they're more likely to do almost all their shopping at one place, at a discount supermarket, and not places like East End. And you can't survive if customers are just coming in for one or two products. Yeah. Like long-term, no. Why would I have all this stuff?

[22:29] to go to for just a few items, and not the bulk of their groceries. [22:34] He's not sure how it continues to survive. Now, I understand that part of your job is also scoping out the prices of your competitors like Aldi. Would you bring me on to one of those? Yes, I'd love to. That'd be really fun. One of those trips, yeah. Yeah, it would be my pleasure. Okay, now how discreet do we have to be? They may have, like, a media policy. Okay, well, then maybe I will switch into different recording gear. [23:04] screen. Sure. But maybe we should take a break. I would like to... [23:07] After the break, Tyler and Jess scope out the competition. [23:13] We'll be right back. [23:17] This podcast is supported by Instagram. Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for teens. Instagram teen accounts have built-in content settings and limits for who can contact teens. Plus, teens under 16 can't change these default safety settings without parental approval. So parents can help teens connect safely. Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see. [23:47] Instagram.com slash teenaccounts. [23:51] Tell me if any of this sounds familiar. Eating meat is the key to good health. Nicotine can boost brain function. GLP-1s are a miracle drug.

[24:01] I'm Dani Blum. I'm a health reporter at The New York Times. We're bombarded pretty much constantly with claims about how to live better and feel better. And it's really hard to separate fact from fiction. That's what really differentiates my reporting and The Times is that I am scouring the science. I am speaking with leading experts. I am making sure that everything I write is rigorously researched, reported, and that I can back it up. [24:26] And when the science isn't clear, sometimes that is the story that we don't know the answers yet. And that's a level of nuance and depth you're not going to get just floating around the Internet. That's what you get when you subscribe to The New York Times. If you already subscribe, thanks. [24:42] If you'd like to, go to mytimes.com slash subscribe. [24:49] You can put this in your back pocket and just clip this onto your shirt. Later on in the afternoon, Tyler and I wired up and walked eight minutes down a high-traffic street. Next to a vacated Rite Aid sits the Aldi. Well, this Aldi looks really spanking new. Tyler routinely scopes this place out since it opened a year and a half ago. All right, let's go in. Let's do it. [25:19] $1.49 for blackberries, which that's not a bad price. No, it's a great price. For Georgian-grown blackberries. And honestly, they're probably very good. Can you get a nice little moldy peach inside the bag? Maybe they're fantastic peaches, but Aldi's doesn't have employees who would be culling this and keeping it nice. Whereas we have staff who, part of their job in the produce department is to get rid of stuff like that, because nobody wants to see that.

[25:49] They just drop pallets on the floor. The bananas, they don't even take out of a box. - This is a very different shopping experience than at Tyler's store. It's much bigger. [25:59] The aisles are wider, no frills. As a shopper, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone to help you locate the parsley. The few workers we did see were clearing the sales floor of empty boxes or products were shipped in, and no workers were needed to wrangle carts. [26:15] You rent a grocery cart for a quarter and get that quarter back when you return it. No loose carts, no extra workers. [26:22] - Thank you. [26:23] Aldi told me in a statement that all of this is meant to drive down costs and lower prices. A strategy that seems to be working. [26:30] Aldi is the fastest growing grocery store chain in the country, with 180 new stores underway. This watermelon, what, is $4.50? I can't even see it because there's some mush over the price. It's like $4.65 maybe. And it's a good looking watermelon, honestly. It's got a nice sunspot. I bet it's tasty. And yours is going for $19 per watermelon out front? Probably the local organic ones, yeah. Yeah, yeah. [26:57] Everything's in boxes. [27:00] I mean, there's a broken egg inside the fridge. Yeah, that's bad. That's just yolk all over the ground. [27:10] But, I mean, for $1.46 a dozen, $1.46 a dozen. That is... It's hard to beat. I've never seen anything that long. Yeah. They're buying a ton in volume for as many stores as they can get the product into to get that deal. Like, you may never see the same bag of chips twice.

[27:30] and look at their beef. So we talked about that before. Let's see how low they can go. When we arrive at the beef case, we see a wide selection. Some even going for $4.79 a pound. Yeah, that looks busted. This is the kind of beef Tyler didn't seem threatened by. [27:48] Until, we both looked up at the top shelf. [27:55] And you reach overhead for a package, a pound of organic ground beef, owing for $7.29. [28:18] folks, there are other considerations with, especially with meat, like humanely raised, that this doesn't talk about. Our standards include humanely raised, grass-fed, grass-finished, also because, I mean, in theory, you could give this cow one blade of grass and say it was grass-fed. It doesn't say that's the only thing it ever ate its whole life, you know. So that's a consideration. What are you feeling when you see that they're able to opt for, you know, we don't really know [28:48] product for right for a little two dollars 70 cents yeah less a lot of people buy ground beef it's a staple for a lot of meat eating customers and it's a very price sensitive category it's very much one that people are attuned to like eggs and milk yep exactly it's hard to say we just got to stay on top of it all you know you can't slouch that's that's what this says to me like we haven't

[29:18] and steaks that that's a little bit of a new thing for me yeah there's like a whole shelf that's like maybe one tenth of their selection of beef is organic yeah does seeing this make you think you might want to lower your beef prices and then mark up something else in that store and what would that be yeah possibly that could be a solution or whatever my advertised deals items are that week add a dime to that for each product instead of the biggest discount possible i retain some [29:48] heat with all these 729 grass-fed organic ground beef requires a little math. [29:54] Tyler could raise the price on his lamb, but he doesn't sell enough lamb to make up for what he's losing in beef. So he could raise the price of a couple of other items around the store. — [30:04] Or, normally, he wouldn't have enough storage to buy ground beef at a high volume and its lowest price. [30:10] But he could bet that with a promotional price. [30:13] He could sell beef fast enough that he wouldn't have to worry about storing it for long. We're not going to drive all these out of the organic ground beef market. But you have to try, is the thing. You use all the tools in your toolkit and regain a little bit of that ground. All right. Anything else in here? I think we're good? And with that key bit of intel, our reconnaissance trip was complete. The exit may be over. Oh, yeah. They force you to go through the cash register. Oh, yeah. You've got to break out of this, Aldi's. [30:43] *Piano music* [30:47] After our visit to Aldi, Tyler is figuring out a way to lower the price of his ground beef. By raising the price of his frozen beef and negotiating a lower rate with his beef supplier, he's hoping to offer his ground beef at $8.99.

[31:03] a dollar lower than what he'd been charging. It's not the $7.29 at ALTI, but Tyler says it's close enough to compete, and low enough to put on flyers as a promotion item to customers. But that's just one item in a store of thousands. Right now, he's putting in pre-orders for turkeys that would lock him in at current high inflationary prices, not knowing what he can sell them for come November. It's a high-wire act balancing these prices, with the hope that it all adds up, [31:35] And then I think about the customers at both East End and at Aldi, who asked me if the cost of groceries will ever go down. What will happen in five or ten years? And what would it mean for their children? Tyler can't say for certain, but he says cost going up is just how it always goes. Even if we see inflation numbers go down, it doesn't translate to normal food prices. It just means prices rise slower. [32:05] fee will be imposed on every ship passing through the strait. He says those costs will continue to be passed on to customers who have long gotten the message that they will just have to adapt. [32:19] Press for assistance to the peanut butter machine. Press for assistance to the peanut butter machine. Thank you. Do you blame anyone? Like, do you want someone to do something about this? It's nothing that can be done about that. You gotta bite the bullet in a way. I gotta find a way to come up with the money, you know? I'm sure it's like 50,000 reasons and excuses why we're slammed with this. What are you supposed to do? Price, it goes up. It's just the way life is, you know what I mean? So you have to be able to adapt to it.

[32:49] Moms adapt. We're resilient. We gotta adapt. You know what? We gotta adapt. [32:59] Are you finding that you have to make certain sacrifices to make ends meet? Cut back what I eat. I packed my lunch now for four months. I ate watermelon every day for lunch. For four months you ate watermelon for lunch? I still do every day, yeah. I cut bread. Is that enough? [33:13] Yeah, watermelon with an apple. Yeah, and my water. Yeah, you get adjusted to it. And how much watermelon are we talking for lunch? Four or five nice pieces. I put it in the containers about that big, and I put that in there. And then I have an apple, and I have a bottle of water. The food that I can eat is very limited. I can't just get peanut butter. I have to get sunflower seed butter, which is extremely expensive. So sometimes I just won't eat. You just won't eat? Yeah, so I've lost a lot of weight. How long has this been going for that you feel like you have to skimp? [33:43] It's been quite a while. I have kids that are cheerleaders. I have boys that play sports. They had practice, so they were hungrier than usual. And my kids often are like, can I have some more? I'm just like, sure. And that's your portion? Sometimes. But then I'll survive off of something small. Like what? Like I'll go eat ramen noodles or something. I'll make them dinner and I'll go eat their chicken nuggets or something.

[34:13] You can't eat like how you used to. You have to space it out a lot. You don't run out of food. You mean eat less? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, eat less and budget more. That seems like a real sacrifice and real change. It is. Sometimes try to eat once a day or just twice. Wow. Yeah. [34:36] And not too much portions. Just eat just enough. Eat to not be entirely full. [34:43] But just eat just enough for your body to be okay, basically. Have you ever had to do this in your life? No. No. Always ate, overate. Yeah. They do that. Yeah. You know. We try to make, like, pastas. Chickpea and rice kind of thing. Like, you know, jackfruit burgers. You know, we try. What's your guys' relationship to each other? We're wives. Oh. [35:09] We have two teenage boys. Two teenage boys. 12 and 14. [35:13] They eat a lot. They eat more than often. That's why we have to sacrifice our, you know, eating as much because they need the nutrition. I see. I see. Like worried of, you know, not being able to provide for my family or that we're going to be okay for today.

[35:46] A number of grocery store chains, including Walmart, Target, and Costco, recently announced that they're cutting prices on some of their key products. [35:55] But even with those deals, Americans' grocery bills are unlikely to fall. [36:00] According to the Department of Agriculture, prices across all food categories are expected to rise 3.2 percent this year. [36:09] We'll be right back. [36:18] This podcast is supported by Instagram. Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for teens. Instagram teen accounts have built-in content settings and limits for who can contact teens. Plus, teens under 16 can't change these default safety settings without parental approval. So parents can help teens connect safely. Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see. [36:48] Instagram.com slash teenaccounts. [36:51] Hi, I'm Solana Pine. I'm the director of video at The New York Times. For years, my team has made videos that bring you closer to big news moments. Videos by Times journalists that have the expertise to help you understand what's going on. Now, we're bringing those videos to you in the Watch tab in The New York Times app. It's a dedicated video feed where you know you can trust what you're seeing. All the videos there are free for anyone to watch. You don't have to be a subscriber. Download The New York Times app to start watching.

[37:24] Here's what else you need to know today. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who epitomized his party's transformation from outright hostility toward Donald Trump to flattering embrace of him, has died at the age of 71. He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn't represent my party. He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. [37:54] for president, Graham led the charge against Trump, calling him a, quote, kook, crazy, and unfit for office. But once Trump won the presidency, Graham suddenly became his eager ally. Our colleague, Mark Leibovich, pushed Graham to explain that abrupt pivot in an episode of The Daily back in 2019. You seem a little sick and tired of the what's happening to Lindsey Graham question. [38:24] I think, from my point of view, if you know anything about me, it'd be odd for me not to do this. Now, what is this? This is to try to be relevant. Try to be relevant. Graham told Leibovitch that his partnership with Trump was pragmatic and allowed him to achieve his own political goals, which over time included defending Ukraine against Russia. Graham's office said that he died from a brief illness shortly after returning from his latest trip to Ukraine.

[38:54] And attacks between Iran and the U.S. continued to escalate over the weekend, with no signs of progress to salvage the ceasefire. After the U.S. military said that Iran had attacked another container ship in the Strait of Hormuz overnight between Saturday and Sunday, U.S. forces carried out some of their most intense strikes on Iran in weeks. U.S. Central Command said it had hit about 140 Iranian military targets. [39:24] Iran attacked several U.S. allied Persian Gulf states, though the U.S. military said that those strikes didn't cause significant damage. The Iranian government said it also had closed the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, though President Trump disputed that claim. [39:43] Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung with help from Rochelle Bonja. It was edited by Michael Benoit with help from Paige Cowett and Patricia Willans. [39:54] Fact Check by Will Peischel. And contains music by Marion Lozano and Diane Wong. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Special thanks to Ben Castleman, Kim Severson, Kevin Draper, and Anna Foley.

[40:24] That's it for The Daily. I'm Natalie Kittroweth. See you tomorrow. [40:39] This podcast is supported by Instagram. Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for teens. Instagram teen accounts have built-in content settings and limits for who can contact teens. Plus, teens under 16 can't change these default safety settings without parental approval. So parents can help teens connect safely. Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see. [41:09] Instagram.com slash teenaccounts.