Stop in for a cup of coffee
Wow!
Really not sure why you're getting hit so hard.
For some of the cuts at the butcher down at the Italian market here, the prices are through the roof as well.
The free range/ grass fed meat at the farm market is actually fairly reasonable in comparison. They're getting hit on fuel and there's also a lack of certified butchers. The latter should not be a issue for a big operation like Sam's buys from.
So my job puts me in the position where I have to track the supply chain of everything the base I work for will use. There’s literally shortages on everything. Every product you see has some level of shortage compared to what is considered “normal” demand.
The industry considers normal demand to be where all end to user distributors (aka stores) have 72 business hours worth of the items the carry in stock at the rate of normal sale conditions. (Things like hurricanes, blizzards etc would cause it to not be normal sales)
The problem is, right now due to variety of factors including wars, covid, political headwinds, labor, cost of materials, etc, the average store in any metro area of over 250,000 people only had 11 hours worth of normal sales of items.
So to alleviate that because let’s face it, more people in a tighter smaller area, equals more profit, and more publicity, the supply chain focuses first in replenishing the larger population areas first. There’s a minimum they have to maintain for rural areas, which is what they are doing.
Add in the transportation costs being more to drive out to the smaller population centers, the price will be higher.
Just a perfect storm.