Shoppers paid slightly more for food at the grocery store at the beginning of 2013. Higher retail prices for meat items such as sliced deli ham, boneless chicken breasts and ground chuck, among other foods, resulted in a slight increase in the American Farm Bureau Federation’s first Semi-Annual Marketbasket Survey. The informal survey shows the total cost of 16 food items that can be used to prepare one or more meals was $51.54, up $1 or about 2 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.
Wheeler: Retail food prices show slight increase