Much of the surge is related to rising labor costs amid a worker shortage crisis, which is putting more pressure on bottlenecked supply chains, which in turn is driving up consumer prices.

“One of my grocers said that forever they’ve had the highest confidence in the supply chain. It was efficient, they tweaked it all the time, it couldn’t be better. Now it’s a skeleton of itself,” said Brandon Scholz, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Grocers Association.

Suppliers can’t find enough product. What product they can move is slowed by a dearth of freight haulers in a trucking industry that bled jobs in the worst of the pandemic. So grocery stores are seeing pallets coming in with 60 percent of their orders — and at higher prices.

Retailers can only hold the line on costs for so long. Ultimately, the consumer gets the higher bill.

– Courtesy Empower Wisconsin