Good examples are turkeys, cranberries and Christmas cake during Noel Season. Customer is still the boss. If customer doesn t buy, merchant will be out of business. Every fluctuation in world economy will directly effect food pricing. Increases in prices of Energy and Fuel are directly affecting cost of food.
Advertising is one of the biggest culprits.
Glossy fliers and large display advertisements in the newspapers and magazines add greatly to the over all price of the product. Food dollar has more then one hundred fractions. Everything in the food industry is based on high volume. Gain of five pennies on an item might not mean much to the outsider. If you multiply those five pennies 250.000 times they become a sizeable amount.