The conference, sponsored by Oldways Trust and the Harvard School of Health, will be held November 20-23 in El Paso, Texas. Rising Food Prices Despite rising wholesale food prices in recent months for commodity items such as milk, meat and produce, menu price increases are remaining stable, averaging a 2.3 percent gain during the past 12 months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Historically, menu price increases average 2 percent. Price increases have been blamed on a host of environmental and cultural causes. In the West, fruit orchards have been slow to develop, partially due to a bee epidemic that has wiped out hundreds of colonies.
Farmers depend on the bees to cross-pollinate their products.
Pork prices have also increased partially due to the high demand for bacon products by the fast-food industry. A new antisalmonella drug, called CF3, has been developed that can reduce the incidence of salmonella in poultry flocks. If current trends continue, fast-food chains will increasingly depend on nontraditional locations to build sales and traffic, capitalizing by going to the customer instead of making the customer come to them. Leaders in the expansion process are shown below. The stamp appears on Budweiser, Bud Light and Bud Ice.