World Perspectives

Livestock Roundup: Food Inflation Driven by Proteins

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for December yesterday. For the month, the CPI was up 0.4 percent, while year-over-year it was up 2.9 percent. The core CPI – excluding energy and food – was up 3.2 percent, well above the Fed’s 2 percent target. Energy was down 0.5 percent, while food increased 2.5 percent, with food at home (retail) up 1.8 percent and food away from home up 3.6 percent.  For the food at home category, beef was up 4.9 percent on the year, with ground beef up 5.2 percent and beef roasts up 7.1 percent. Retail prices lag behind the wholesale boxed beef cutout, and the cutout was up 8.2 percent in December compared to December 2023, and so far in January the cutout has been...

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Aid versus Trade; Idealism versus Competition; AI and Ag; Untethered Presidency

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Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming

WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.

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