Dinner just got a lot more expensive: the Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed that supermarket and grocery store prices went up by almost 11 percent between April 2021 and this year, with predictions slating it to rise further (it rose by 1.3 percent between March and April alone). Surprisingly, food for home consumption grew even faster than restaurant prices. While the CPI doesn’t have a specific measure of the prices at farmers’ markets around the country, many vendors feel the squeeze of gas prices and ingredients acutely.
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“It is starting to look like running a tiny business is not really worth it financially,” says Alina Muratova, founder of Sweet Bakery in Seattle, Washington, who sells at the Ballard Farmers Market. In the last two years, her costs skyrocketed—including the price of butter, which doubled. It costs her $15 just to drive her mini-van 7 to 8 miles from her commissary kitchen to the market a number that grows exponentially for farmers coming from further away or who need larger vehicles for their wares.
