Macroeconomics Food Costs See Sharp Drop in July After a Sizable Uptick in June Food prices have whipsawed this summer after seeing a steady climb in Q2. After a 1 percent uptick in May, the average cost of food moved up 2.3 percent in June from the year prior. While pork prices fell by 7.2 percent in June, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, cooking oil, eggs, and milk saw year-on-year increases of 10.8 percent, 6.4 percent, .6 percent, and .4 percent, respectively. That upward trend quickly reversed course in July, as China’s overall economy hit the skids on declining consumer sentiment. Overall, food prices dropped by 1.7 percent last month from a year ago. Pork prices plummeted by 26 percent, year-on-year, underscoring t...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.