From beans to burgers, food is getting more expensive

“We’re in a period of unprecedented commodity inflation,” Unilever Chief Executive Officer Alan Jope told investors Monday. He said Unilever would recover some of those costs in part by selling smaller packages of some foods at the same price as a larger size. Higher prices on grocery-store shelves and restaurant menus are part of a broader rise in inflation. U.S. consumer prices surged 5% in May from a year ago to reach the highest annual inflation rate in nearly 13 years. More expensive used cars and trucks fueled the increase, according to Labor Department data, and prices for furniture and airfare also jumped. Food prices are rising because of the higher costs for labor and transport but also ingredients including corn, soybean oil and wheat. Rising meat prices got another bump up last week when a ransomware attack briefly knocked offline JBS SA plants that process nearly a quarter of U.S. beef and a fifth of chicken and pork.