Presidential hopeful Vice President Kamala Harris is targeting high food prices as part of her campaign's economic policy,  including a push for a federal ban on price gouging on groceries with emphasis on rising meat prices.

The Harris campaign says  price gouging accounts for a large part of rising grocery bills.

Harris will call on Congress to pass a federal ban on grocery price gouging as part of the economic policy measures her administration would implement in its first 100 days, aiming to lower grocery costs for consumers.

Consumer confidence surveys show that high prices remain a concern for shoppers, particularly among lower-income Americans, even as inflation has cooled.

According to retail sales data from Circana, the average price per pound in the meat department from July 2023 to July 2024 across all cuts and kinds (fixed and random weight) was $4.54, up 1.7% year-on-year and up 16% compared to July 2021.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index report for July 2024 released on Aug. 14, 2024, finds the food index increased 0.2% in July 2024 as well as June 2024, while the index for food at home rose 0.1% in July. CPI findings suggest the index for meats, poultry, and fish rose 0.7% in July 2024. Another fresh foods category — fruits and vegetables — saw its index rise 0.8% for July 2024.

The index for food at home rose 1.1% over the past 12 months (July 2023 to July 2024), according to BLS, while the meats, poultry, fish and eggs index rose 3% in the past 12 months. Over the same period, the fruits and vegetables index fell -0.2% year-over-year, as did the dairy and related products index. 

Industry reacts

Meat and poultry industry associations said the proposed federal ban on grocery price gouging fails to account for market forces impacting producer costs and other ongoing economic challenges Americans face. 

“Consumers have been impacted by high prices due to inflation on everything from services to rent to automobiles, not just at the grocery store," Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts said in response to reports of the Harris campaign's proposal to ban grocery price gouging. "A federal ban on price gouging does not address the real causes of inflation."

Potts added that, "The Harris campaign rhetoric unfairly targets the meat and poultry industry and does not match the facts. Food prices continue to come down from the highs of the pandemic. Prices for meat are based on supply and demand. Avian Influenza, a shortage of beef cattle and high input prices like energy and labor are all factors that determine prices at the meat case. Prices for cattle producers especially are at record highs, surpassing the 2014-15 previous record highs."

In response to the proposed federal ban on food price gouging, National Chicken Council Interim President Gary Kushner said, "Americans are seeing inflation in nearly every part of their livelihoods — rent, gas, automobiles, furniture — not just in the meat case. Chicken prices are largely affected by supply and demand, by major input costs like corn, soybeans, energy, packaging, transportation, and by fiscal policy and burdensome government regulations — not price gouging."

Kushner decried using the meat and poultry industry as a "scapegoat and a distraction" for food price inflation.